


I'm Dying

by blythechild



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aftermath of a Case, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Conversations, Complicated Relationships, Declarations Of Love, Denial of Feelings, Developing Relationship, Empath, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Self-Destruction, Serial Killers, Unresolved Emotional Tension, We Just Love Each Other, clueless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 56,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26653129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: Spencer Reid develops symptoms that look a lot like dying. At least to him. But when he discovers that his ailment might be linked to his boss, he sorta wishes he was dying instead.OR, how Reid has never been in love before and mistakes it for something fatal.This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim any rights over the characters herein. It was created as a personal amusement. This story contain adult themes, show-typical violence, and sexual activity. It should not be read by those under the age of 18.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid
Comments: 275
Kudos: 495





	1. The Onset

He’s obviously dying. That’s what’s happening here. Dying at thirty. He’d consider it a tragedy, but since it’s happening to him, that sentiment seems self-serving. There are so many things he wanted to accomplish, both professionally and personally. The personal list is longer, but that’s only because he keeps putting those ones off in favor of another degree, or a paper, or a paradigm-changing theory. And… he isn’t good at the personal stuff. He knows that. It sorta scares him, so the list is bigger than it should be. But still, dead at thirty. What a waste.

He can’t breathe and his chest feels like it’s collapsing and exploding simultaneously, and he’s been silent too long because Hotch is scowling at him in a way that signals he expects Reid to contribute to the conversation. Which will not happen because there’s no oxygen in his body at all, and his entire blood supply is pooling under his ribs. Hotch steps closer, scowling more intensely, and Reid’s entire being wants to back away because the movement is making everything feel worse.

“Reid?” 

Hotch’s hand lands on his arm and he swears it feels like he’s on fire where they meet, even through the layers of cotton and wool.

“Are you okay? You’re very pale…” His voice rumbles, but there’s an undertone of soft concern now. God, Reid must look as bad as he feels. He swallows and chokes at the dryness of his mouth. Then tries again, and with tremendous effort, coaxes something out.

“I feel sick,” he gasps. 

It is the most accurate assessment of the situation. Hotch’s scowl evaporates instantly, replaced by an unusual, wide-eyed worry. His hand leaves Reid’s arm and skims across his back as he tries to shoulder them both towards an empty office chair.

“Okay, sit down. Take a deep breath…”

Reid actually yelps at the hand on his back, and Hotch immediately releases him, hovering close, but not touching. His concern is like a bullhorn broadcasting this moment to everyone in the office, and Reid can feel the eyes crawling over him as he sags into a squeaky chair and coughs to get more oxygen so he can tell them to all go away and let him die with some dignity.

“What’s going on?” That’s Emily. Her hand lands on his shoulder and it doesn’t burn.

“He’s not well,” Hotch murmurs above Reid, like he’s not there, and a moment later his chest eases dramatically so he can take a full breath once more.

“What’s doin’, Reid?” Emily mumbles close to him, her palm moving in circles over his upper back as he bends and tries to suck in more air. Her touch is soothing, encouraging a sympathetic flow throughout his chest. He gulps in another breath and starts to feel his brain edge away from panic and back towards analysis. The attack is passing, thank goodness…

“Just breathe, buddy,” Hotch says softly, and suddenly Reid’s chest seizes up again. 

_Fuck._

He lurches to his feet without warning as both Emily and Hotch tell him to sit and calm down. Weaving like a drunk, he tries to step around and make a break for the washroom. He needs to get away. His whole body is screaming for it. Jesus, this is excruciating…

“Hey, Reid, c’mon…” Emily says to him. 

“Spencer…” Hotch calls out, and Reid whips his head to look back when Hotch uses his first name. Hotch never does that, and when his eyes find him, Hotch has become the living embodiment of worry. It’s so alien on him, so different from the button-down professionalism he constantly exudes, that Reid can’t look away from it. It’s as if he’s mesmerized – his brain won’t do anything but stare – but his body keeps moving.

And that’s when he runs into the desk.

“Spencer!” Hotch yells and then strides after him as whoever Reid just ran into yelps ‘hey, man!’ and Reid tries to blindly move around the furniture and the flailing arms of an anonymous co-worker.

Reid glances back quickly and sees Hotch a step behind him, his hand reaching out…

“Don’t touch me!” he gasps, and Hotch immediately stops short, hand still held in midair, and his expression as if Reid just pulled his weapon on him. “Don’t… don’t touch me. Please…”

The ‘please’ comes out all desperate and wispy, and Reid just wants to crawl into a small, dark hole and die. Which will probably happen sooner rather than later, since it appears that his malady has amped up suddenly. If he can’t handle day-to-day stuff around the office now, well… there’s not much left for him. And it’s just too embarrassing to collapse into helplessness so completely in front of Hotch. A final indignity. All he ever wanted was to be capable and worthwhile in his eyes; he wanted to be seen as _a man_ , not a fragile, freakish idiot…

He keeps stumbling until he blindly finds the men’s room, which is blissfully empty, and the scent of bleach snaps him back to his senses a little. He grapples about until his hands find a sink, and he leans into it for dear life, the cool porcelain grounding him as his breathing eases, and his heart slows. By the time he hears the door swing open, he can see and think straight again, and his chest no longer feels like there’s a locomotive parked on it.

“Wow, man, that was dramatic. Even for you.”

He closes his eyes and sighs heavily. Of all the people who could come after him, this is both a surprising and comforting outcome. “This is the men’s room, Emily.”

She snorts. “Like there’s _anything_ I might see here that I haven’t seen before…”

He smiles despite his embarrassment and misery. And impending death. He’ll miss her a lot…

“Talk to me, Reid.” Her tone has changed to quiet worry. “What’s going on? I thought you were having a heart attack. Hotch wanted to call the paramedics…”

 _Shit._ To have his boss stand over him as medics strap him to a gurney and wheel him out of the FBI like the invalid he’s becoming… Mortifying.

“I think I’m dying,” he says softly, opening his eyes to focus on the sink drain in front of him. The enamel is worn and discolored from years of water rushing past it, washing the dirt and guilt and regret from hundreds of agents away. 

Beside him, Emily gasps. “C’mon…”

“It’s been coming on for a while. I thought… maybe I had more time. But today is bad. It’s never been this bad before…”

“Have you seen a doctor?” Her hand lands lightly on his shoulder, and it’s still fine. No reaction.

Reid shakes his head. “It’s intermittent. I don’t know how to explain symptoms that come and go at random. I don’t want to come off like a hysteric.”

He feels heat rising to his cheeks, but Emily’s hand squeezes his shoulder and he focuses on that instead.

“What are the symptoms?”

“Shortness of breath, chest constriction, heart palpitations, nausea, gastric distress, difficulty swallowing, aphasia…”

“Aphasia?”

He nods, still glaring at the drain. “Sometimes I can’t talk when an attack hits. Occasionally there’s some descending paralysis as well.”

“Descending paralysis…”

“Yeah, I can’t move or talk. But I can still _think_ about moving and talking.” He sucks in a huge breath and lets it out, shivering. “It’s horrifying. You know how much autonomy means to me.”

Emily’s hand starts to rub circles into him again. “Well… that does sound like shit. But it also could be a lot of things, Reid. You’re probably not dying. You’re far too young, for one thing.”

“I feel like I’m dying,” he adds quickly, because he’s not wrong about this. He _knows_ what he’s feeling.

“Well,” Emily continues with a slightly patronizing tone he knows well. “Let’s think this through a little more before we start measuring you for a coffin, okay?”

He grumbles at her, and then meets her eyes in the mirror. One side of her mouth is curled sarcastically, like they’re talking about anything other than his imminent demise. How dare she.

“You say it happens intermittently. So, what leads to an attack?”

He huffs at her. As if he hasn’t already considered triggering variables like environment, stress, diet, physical stimuli… 

“There’s no pattern.”

“Humor me,” she pushes.

“Well, it first happened after that hostage negotiation I did in Sacramento. I thought it was an anxiety attack. Hotch was so angry at me afterwards… he told me if I did that again, he’d staple me into a Kevlar vest permanently, remember?”

“I remember. He was livid. That’s hard to forget.”

“Then they started happening at random case briefings, or when Hotch assigned tasks in the field. Then they began to happen in my personal life, away from work. I had one at Hotch’s triathlon. The one where he introduced us to Beth?”

Emily nods, eyes serious.

“In the elevator. When I’m reading at home. When I’m finishing up reports. When I’m daydreaming…” Reid counts them off on his fingers, hoping she’s starting to see how arbitrary it all is. “In Hotch’s office, at my desk, in the parking lot, on the VRE…”

“Okay, I’m getting it. But there has to be a reason for it, Reid.”

“Does there? Because, when you discount external factors, all that’s left are biological ones. And cell mutation doesn’t really need a reason.” His voice is getting a little high and tight. He has to calm down or he might bring on another event. “Now, I can’t even stand to be touched. How much longer will I be able to do my job at this rate? How much longer can I function?”

Emily doesn’t answer right away. “I’m touching you right now, Reid.”

His eyes flick up to see her hand on his shoulder in the mirror. She squeezes it for good measure.

“Hotch’s touch burned.” He blinks at their combined reflection. It’s just because he’s not having an attack right now. That explains it.

“But my touch doesn’t?” she asks, an eyebrow rising slowly.

“I’m not having an attack at the moment,” he reiterates out loud, as if repetition will cement the theory.

“I touched you earlier. Out in the bullpen with Hotch.”

Did she? That’s odd.

“I don’t remember.”

She lets a moment of silence fall between them. Then he watches as her gazes sharpens the way it does when she’s zeroing in on an anomaly. 

“You’ve completely ignored a psychological cause, you know…”

“Really?” He gives her reflection a withering stare. “Are you going to ‘shrink’ me?”

She rolls her eyes and shrugs off his disbelief, murmuring, “A lot of the attacks you described happened around Hotch.” 

He feels his face heat up.

“That makes sense. He’s our leader. He’s always around.” His chest starts to tighten again, and he quietly begins to panic.

“Sure,” she nods, her slicing gaze unmoved by his point. “But was he present for _all_ the events? Take a moment… try to remember.”

Ridiculous. He would’ve noticed, surely. Hotch was present for the first event; he already stated that. And he was obviously present at all events that happened during case briefings or field tasks. He was at the triathlon, and he was in the proximity when any attack happened at Quantico. But it’s an open-concept office, for goodness sake, and Hotch practically lives at work. That doesn’t mean anything.

But the times in the elevator. Sometimes he was with the team, so Hotch was there. A few times it was later in the day and Hotch was there as well, riding to the lobby, chatting about dinner or plans for the weekend… And in the parking lot. Hotch had driven Reid home a few times when the weather was bad, and sometimes Reid looked around to see if Hotch’s car was still in the lot when he left. When he was alone, reading or daydreaming, had his thoughts slipped to Hotch? Had he wondered what his boss was doing at that moment? Had he thought about conversations they’d had? Had he made plans for the next time they’d meet, either to engage or keep him at a distance?

But…

No. C’mon. It’s a crazy notion. Hotch isn’t a part of this. He’s _dying_ , and Hotch isn’t responsible for that unless he’s poisoning him for some reason. And Hotch wouldn’t poison him because he likes him. They’re friends.

Reid looks up at Emily’s reflection and sees her wearing a ‘gotcha’ look that sets his hackles up. She hasn’t _got_ anything. This proves nothing.

“Do you understand what’s happening now?” she asks.

“No. Of course, I don’t,” he says testily. “So what if Hotch was around most of the time? We’re ALL around each other most of the time!”

Emily rolls her eyes again. “Listen. You’ve been having these seemingly random moments that bear a close resemblance to anxiety attacks. But they aren’t really random, are they? The common denominator is Aaron Hotchner. In our business, we call that a clue, Reid.”

“What are you talking about?” he snaps back, suddenly rubbing at the invisible seam down the center of his chest that it is lighting up with electric spasms. “Are you saying Hotch is part of my illness?”

“I’m saying Hotch _is_ your illness. The symptoms are a reaction to him. And given the theatrical display you just gave us a few minutes ago, I’d say the effect is getting stronger with time.”

“I wasn’t ‘theatrical’.”

“You ran into furniture trying to get away from him,” Emily deadpans. “A part of you realizes it’s about him.”

He whimpers and rubs the center of his chest harder. Dammit. He’s going to have to find another job; he’s allergic to his boss. He hears an exasperated sigh, and glances to Emily who’s looking back at him in disbelief.

“Wow, you still aren’t getting this, are you?”

“Getting what?!?”

“You aren’t dying, Reid,” she huffs, one hand now braced authoritatively on her hip. “You’re just crushing on Hotch.”

He feels his entire body cramp at the exact moment his stomach launches into his esophagus. He wheezes around the obstruction, and only afterwards realizes that wheeze was a question. “ _WHAT?_ ”

“I can’t fault your taste,” she continues, oblivious to the fact that he’s stopped breathing again. “Tortured personal life and extreme self-sacrifice notwithstanding, it’s easy to see the allure there. But any way you approach it, the situation is a tough nut to crack…”

Tough nut… Hotch… _has she gone insane?_

“What?!?” he whispers again ineffectually. She glances at him and must see that he doesn’t believe her.

“C’mon man, haven’t you ever been in love before?”

“ _LOVE???_ ” He is NOT in love with Hotch. He’d know if he was… 

Wouldn’t he?

“Well, have you?” she asks, now genuinely curious. He’s taken aback by her assumption at his inexperience. Then he thinks about it – really _thinks._ He probably takes too long.

“Oh my God,” she breathes. “You’ve NEVER been in love before? But… but you’re an adult-”

“I’m not a virgin.” It kicks out of him almost instinctually. He’s had to defend himself one too many times on this score, and he resents her a little for making him do it again. “I know what attraction feels like. I’ve had lovers.”

“Oh honey…” Emily’s voice gets soft, and when he looks at her, her expression is soft as well. “I’m not talking about sex, or friends with benefits here. I mean _love._ Like, the feeling that another person makes your whole life better. Or, that you’d give up everything that’s important to you in order to get closer to them. You think about this person before yourself all the time. They make you crazy because they pull at you in opposite directions constantly. Brave and scared, tender and fierce, calm and agitated…”

His mind gets quiet on him, and he just stares at his hand clutching the side of the sink. Calm and agitated. That’s how he’s felt around Hotch for ages. The agitation is clear, and evidently escalating, but there’s also a pull when he’s sitting up late at night. _I imagine myself seeing him again._ The conversations he rehearses and stockpiles, just in case the opportunity arises. The social situations he practices in the mirror, because he’s not good at spontaneity. The way he feels like a failure because he can’t look him in the eye, he can’t maintain the fiction of capability. Because Hotch is so, so enviously capable all the time…

Oh no. Oh _no…_

“Shit,” he says quietly, and feels Emily twitch at his side. Then he closes his eyes to slink down into the misery of this realization. “How did this happen?”

The statement produces a profound and uncomfortable silence between them. There’s so little happening suddenly that he thinks he can hear his blood rushing inside him. Emily breaks first, shifting beside him and making hesitant noises in lieu of conversation.

“Uh… well…”

“How do I make it stop?” he interrupts softly, searching for her eyes in the mirror, and she goes stiff next to him.

“What do you mean ‘how do I make it stop’? It’s love, Reid. You don’t _stop it._ The best you can hope for is that you grow out of it. If it’s unrequited, that is-”

“Of course, it’s unrequited,” he growls, suddenly turning to look her in the eye, hot and agitated at this truth she’s making him face. “Why would it be requited? Hotch is straight.”

Emily blinks, perhaps taken aback by the heat of his response. “Well, sure, I guess. That’s the assumption we’re all operating under. But, no offense, until today I thought the same thing about you, Reid.” 

She sighs and lets that hover between them for a moment. She has a point; his history is sparse but well-known amongst friends who are hardwired to look for hidden ‘tells’. His mind, libido – whatever – has never prompted his eyes to seek out men. The concept has never disgusted him, but he’s always been, well, indifferent to it. He’s not even sure now that sex is a part of this _issue_ around Hotch. Truly.

“Who knows what he feels?” Emily adds eventually.

“He’s my friend. He feels _friendship_ ,” he viciously asserts. “Just because I’ve become confused, doesn’t mean he has.”

“Okay,” Emily says in her most placid tone.

“This is terrible. Love is the worst. I am not a fan. Why do people enjoy it so much?”

Emily’s mouth twitches and her eyes crinkle like she wants to smile, but all she does it squeeze his shoulder again.

“This is humiliating. I’m gonna have to quit the Bureau…” He sags and leans his weight against the sink despondently.

“Jesus, you are dramatic as fuck,” she grumbles, and waits for him to meet her eyes again. _Now_ she’s smiling. “You’re not quitting the FBI, numb-nuts.”

“Well, I can’t continue like this.” He flails in the general direction of the bullpen beyond the washroom. “I can’t do my job if I have a coronary event every time Hotch is in the room. And if you figured it out, eventually he will too.”

“So, tell him,” she shrugs.

“I can’t tell him!”

“Why not?” Emily sighs when Reid gives her a look like she’s just checked out on sanity. “I’m serious. You know the best way to modify a negative psychological response is to confront the precipitating stimulus. And since Hotch is stimulating the hell outta you, explain what’s going on and try to work on a way you can both help to reduce the unpleasant effects of it. You say he’s a friend… a friend would want to help.”

He feels like all the blood drains out of his body along with his pride and will to live. Sure, Emily’s theory is sound, but the practicalities of explaining this embarrassing intimacy to a friend, negotiating the resulting awkwardness, and then suffering the pitying looks Hotch is bound to give him from now on… Well, he’s not good at the personal stuff, right? And this is a huge, unwieldy chunk to tackle without a lot of experience to bolster him. It’s possible he cringes while thinking this through because she continues as if he needs further coaxing.

“The sooner you confront this and realize it’s one-sided, the sooner your brain will begin the process of distancing and desensitizing from the unwanted emotions. I’m pretty sure half of your anxiety right now is an unconscious fear of discovery. If you tell him, that evaporates.”

“And overwhelming shame takes its place,” he adds miserably.

“Spence… developing feelings for someone you already care about isn’t shameful,” she murmurs kindly while stroking his arm. “It’s natural.”

“But not between us,” he whispers. “Not for me. It’s never happened before. Why did it have to be… _him?_ ”

“I don’t know.” She pulls him in for a hug and he goes willingly. “I’m sure we could pull apart the psychological backbone of it, but maybe it’s better if we just qualify attraction as ‘weird’ and leave it at that.”

He snuggles a little deeper into her shoulder and sighs. “I agree that it feels weird.”

She chuckles. “Well, there’s no one better with ‘weird’ than you, Reid.”

Another silent moment passes between them. God, he hopes no one comes into the men’s room and sees them like this. He doesn’t need an HR infraction on top of the rest of this day.

“He’ll never look at me the same way,” he says eventually, pulling from her arms. “I’m definitely gonna lose something with him when this is all over.”

Emily’s expression gets sad in a way that’s difficult to understand. “People are constantly changing, Spencer. His view of you is bound to change whether this happened or not.”

“But… how do you recover a friendship where one person feels much more than the other?” His voice gets choppy on him, and his eyes shoot to the tops of his sneakers as he blinks too much. “Even if I get control over this, and the feelings subside in time, won’t he always feel hesitant around me?”

Emily doesn’t answer, and he figures that’s because she doesn’t have something reassuring to say. He kicks his scuffed sneaker against the tiles and sighs heavily.

“I never asked for this…”

“I know you didn’t.” Her arm slides around his shoulders and gives him an excuse to lean into her for support. He needs some support right now. “Do you think you’re okay to head back out there?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” he mumbles. “I can’t stay in here forever.”

“I have some Valium in my desk if you want.”

He twists and shoots her a look, one eyebrow cocked.

“Hey, this job is stressful, okay?” she shrugs as they both begin walking towards the door. “It’s _prescription._ And I don’t use them that much anymore. But, like, half a pill could sorta cut the edge a bit… you know, if you start to feel panicky again…”

He gives her a lethal glare and raises his hand. “Addict, here.” Then she unhelpfully rolls her eyes once more.

“It’s _Valium_. But whatever, boy scout. If you want to ride the rest of the day out like a raw nerve ending, have at it. Maybe you can avoid Hotch until you figure out how to talk to him-”

They push through the men’s room door and Hotch is _right there_ , pacing in the hall like a conflicted predator. When his eyes land on them, his expression is barely-contained agitation which is quickly replaced by professional disapproval when he glances at Emily with her arm firmly clamped around Reid’s shoulders.

“Hotch,” Emily declares, with a frightening smile. Reid feels his pulse immediately rocket into the stratosphere and his mouth becomes so dry it becomes painful to swallow.

“Prentiss.” Hotch cocks an eyebrow at her and then points to the sign on the door. “It’s the men’s room.”

“That’s what he said,” she huffs and nods to Reid. Hotch’s stare shifts to Reid, and it feels like gravity shifts with it as Reid waits for it to crush him to the floor.

“You okay?” Hotch’s voice is genuinely worried, lower than normal. “I thought about following you, but then didn’t want to impose myself on your privacy. Unlike others.”

Hotch’s eyes flick back to Emily, and Emily smirks like she couldn’t care less, jostling Reid against her for good measure. Something behind Reid’s ribs explodes and radiates through him at the thought of Hotch deferring to his privacy.

Oh man. He’s really in trouble with this.

“He’s fine, for now,” Emily answers for him. “But it’s convenient that we ran into you stalking out here…”

Both Hotch and Reid are glaring at her now, and her smile gets even wider.

“I wasn’t stalking,” Hotch intones gravely.

“Of course, you weren’t. Why would you?” Emily asks innocently while giving Reid a subtle hip-check at the same time. He doesn’t understand what she’s doing. “All I meant was, you’re here and Reid just mentioned how much he needed to talk to you, so…”

She turns and smiles at Reid with a sort of ‘ta-da’ nod like she’s just done him the biggest favor. And he stares back at her and wonders why they’re friends to begin with.

“Why?” he breathes incredulously, his chest tightening and his face getting hot.

“No time like the present, numb-nuts,” she whispers back and then half-shoves him towards Hotch, who seems legitimately caught off guard by all of this. It would be amusing if Reid weren’t ramping up to his second heart attack of the day.

“What’s going on?” Hotch asks.

“Nothing. Not a damned thing. With me,” Emily spreads a hand across her chest, and then shifts it to point between Hotch and Reid. “But you two need to chat a.s.a.p.”

Hotch looks to Reid, and worry overtakes him again, making the strange tingles in Reid’s chest go into overdrive. “We do?”

“Well… uh… well…”

“Yes, you do,” Emily sighs and shoves Reid again. “In your office, Hotch. Now.”

They both stare at her and she stares back. Then she huffs, clearly _done_ with their intractability. “Go on. Chop, chop. We’re losing daylight here…”

She waves so aggressively that both Hotch and Reid stumble back and reluctantly allow themselves to be herded in the general direction of Hotch’s office. When they reach the bullpen, all eyes lock on Reid without even an attempt at politeness, and this moves Hotch to take over, clearing his throat and gesturing up to his office door. Emily sighs as she shuffles away towards her desk, clearly happy to be done with the drama. Reid watches her go, wishing more than anything that the sixth floor was suddenly raided by terrorists or bloodthirsty killers so he had something _else_ to do right now. Even the prospect of being shot is more appealing than his boss’s office.

Reid makes it there under his own steam and congratulates himself on not giving into his racing pulse or shallow breathing. Yes, not passing out is a good first step. Hotch closes them in and then circles around to his desk.

“So, what’s on your mind, Reid?” Hotch glances at him and the worry is back once more. He waves his hands towards the chair across from him. “Sit. You look like you’re going to collapse. Are you sure you’re okay? Would you like some water?”

The idea of Hotch fussing over him makes his cheeks flame with humiliation. He slouches down into the chair and shakes his head, making hair flop into his face in the process.

“I’ll be okay,” he croaks. “Please don’t trouble yourself.”

“It’s no trouble,” Hotch rumbles, ignoring Reid and retrieving a bottle of water from the mini fridge in the corner of the office. His fingers brush Reid’s as he hands him the bottle, and Reid tamps down hard on any reaction he could possibly make about that. Then Hotch leans against his desk, staring, much closer than if he’d taken up his traditional seat behind it. 

“Do I rate an explanation about what happened in the men’s room? Because I’m more than a bit curious.”

Reid suffers from a moment of inconvenient speechlessness as he looks up at Hotch, his eyes worried and shadowed, but attempting to pull off some lightheartedness at the same time. Hotch laces his fingers together and waits, leaning forward enough to make his suit outline his sharp authority a little more. 

_He’s just… he’s… dammit, I’m so screwed._

Reid quickly opens the water and drinks too much, almost choking. But the sudden shift in bodily panic frees up his speech center.

“It’s… uh…” Reid gulps down more water. “Emily was talking me down a bit. That’s all.”

“I gathered that.” Hotch smirks a little, but the worry around his eyes is parked there. “Can you tell me what set you off today?”

Reid closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I’ve been unwell for a while.”

Opening his eyes, he sees that Hotch is quietly devastated by this sentence. He didn’t expect that.

“Unwell how?” Hotch murmurs.

“I don’t know. For a time, I thought it was something to do with my heart,” Reid sighs and thinks, _how ironic_. “I guess I was scared to find out.”

“Let me guess: you found out what it was today, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Reid breathed.

“And?” Hotch shifts uncomfortably against the edge of the desk. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t wish to. But if you require sick leave or a disability provision, I’ll need to know some basics to file the paperwork-”

“It’s not… it turns out it’s not physical,” Reid cuts in, blush already racing over him. “Emily made me see what it’s really about. I… I didn’t want to see… or maybe… I don’t have the eyes to see it _with_ …”

There’s a painful moment of silence, and then Hotch softly interrupts it. “Reid, I don’t understand.”

“I… uh… you see… I accidentally fell in love.”

Hotch’s expression goes neutral instantly. The only crack in the unreadable mask is the slight rise of his eyebrows, as if someone just used the wrong fork at dinner. Reid’s whole body has become painful yet immovable in his chair, but still he tries to leak a basic, unspoken plea for understanding. He’s so uncomfortable, so ashamed, so thoroughly disappointed that he’s fallen victim to this and can’t control anything about it. His hand clasps the chair arm so hard that the wood makes a substantial crack in warning.

“I… I didn’t know, you see. It’s never happened to me. I thought I was dying.”

“Dying?” Hotch’s brows wrinkle in confusion. Or maybe poorly-timed amusement. _Great._

Reid nods. “It’s a very unpleasant combination of sensations.”

Hotch doesn’t have a response for that, so Reid pushes on.

“I should stipulate that I never intended for this to happen. I didn’t go looking for it.”

“That’s the general consensus on how love works, Reid.”

He glances up and the corner of Hotch’s mouth is curled slightly. Oh God, this is worse than pity – he’s _entertained_ by the ineptitude here…

“How long has this been going on?”

“Well…” Reid chokes. “I’m not sure exactly. The anxiety has been building for a while, so…”

“Anxiety?” Hotch leans further forward. “Reid, I’m not one to give opinions about personal matters, but… love shouldn’t cause anxiety. It should be wonderful, especially in the beginning. Perhaps you just need to address it, now that you’re aware of what’s happening.”

He’s exuding such a sense of warm reassurance that it breaks Reid a little, and he quickly averts his eyes and focuses on the water bottle in his other hand. His knuckles have turned white from the death-like grip on it.

“That’s what Emily said.”

“Well, I’m glad. She’s right, you know.”

“She said I needed to confront the precipitating stimulus and thereby reduce the discomfort I’m experiencing.”

“That’s a bit clinical, but it’s on the money.”

Reid gulps down the bile in his throat and enough air to see him through the most painful moment of his adult life and looks Hotch dead in the eye. “So, that’s what I’m doing now.”

Hotch’s expression freezes. It’s confusion – Reid’s certain about that. But it must be so much confusion that he forgets to mask it. A whole minute passes where they stare at each other and don’t do anything else. It is almost hurtful.

“Uh…” Hotch finally manages when the confusion clears into sudden understanding. He looks like he might be blushing. It’s terrible.

Reid drops his eyeline to the floor and concentrates on breathing through his mouth and not throwing up. So much for revelation easing things. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

There’s more silence in the room, but at least they can do it privately without witnessing each other’s embarrassment. Then Reid hears the shifting of wool and the scuff of shoes along the carpet.

“So… just to be clear… it’s, uh, _me_ , then?”

Reid squeezes his eyes shut and nods. There’s another punishing silence.

“I wasn’t aware you preferred men,” Hotch murmurs.

“Neither was I,” Reid chokes down and still can’t look up. “I mean… I never have before. I’m not even sure… this is about… _that_.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Please, I’m sorry…” Reid cramps around the words, wanting more than anything to beg Hotch to remain his friend in spite of this mess.

“There’s absolutely nothing to be sorry for.” Hotch’s voice is far too gentle, too understanding. “Almost no one chooses who they fall in love with, Spencer.”

“But… you didn’t ask for this,” Reid chokes, mostly to himself, his hand squeezing the chair arm until it creaks. “You didn’t… _do_ anything…”

“I don’t think that’s the poi-”

“ _I_ didn’t ask for this,” Reid spits out viciously, feeling hot and useless all over. “I don’t _want_ to be in love.”

And it’s as if the statement sucks all the oxygen out of Hotch’s office. Nothing moves, nothing stretches and declares its existence in the universe. It’s like both Reid and Hotch have been blown out an airlock into the silence of space where they’ll float as they both suffocate to death.

Finally, Hotch clears his throat; a dry, painful rasp that Reid’s never heard from him in over a decade of friendship. He looks up without thinking, and Hotch is blushing so much it’s almost comical. Reid has never seen him embarrassed like this. Never. And his shame swamps him completely. He shuts his eyes again to erase the image and lets his spine collapse into the chair.

“Please forgive me,” he whispers.

“Forgive you? For what?” Hotch’s voice is barely above a whisper itself.

“For embarrassing you this way. For being so wholly incapable of marshalling my emotions to avoid this. For being a _literal child_ when it comes to interpersonal relationships. You’re… you’re my friend, and I…”

Reid opens his eyes to face Hotch’s blush once more. But now it’s accompanied by an unsettling, wide-eyed stare that Reid can’t place in his mental library of ‘Hotch reactions’. He’s also leaning hard against the desk edge, not as a casual pose, but as if he needs it to hold him up. And his hands have curled over the edge, making his skin stretch tight across his knuckles.

“I’ve only ever wanted to earn your respect,” Reid swallows and nearly chokes on his spit. _Smooth._ “I… I want to be capable… I… please don’t think less of me. Don’t let my failure change us. I’ll… I’ll do whatever I can to fix this, though I’m not sure how yet…”

Hotch moves. It’s sudden and yet also very gentle, like he doesn’t want to spook Reid unduly. Then he’s crouching in front of Reid’s chair, his expensive suit creasing in unseemly ways and his oxfords creaking as his feet flex to keep his balance. The lines around his eyes are deep with worry, his mouth pulled down making his cheeks look gaunter than they are. Reid is shocked into silence, looking down at the man he’s always looked up to.

“I’m not… embarrassed,” Hotch rumbles softly. His hand flicks along his thigh as if he wants to place it somewhere, but it ends up staying where it is. “I’m surprised.” He says the word with an odd sense of awe.

“Well, that makes two of us then,” Reid tries for a joke, but it comes out desperate and wispy. Hotch’s mouth lifts in the slightest of smiles anyway.

“Spencer.” Hotch says his name and lets it linger, as if he needs to make a point with it. “You are my friend and I respect the hell out of you. I always have.”

Reid begins blinking so rapidly that his vision stutters like old 8mm film. His chest contracts and he stops breathing. Again.

“And you are one of the most reassuringly capable people I know. That sense of faith in you has been rock solid for over a decade. Surely you know that, don’t you? If you don’t, I’m sorry I didn’t let you know in so many words.”

“You… you…” Reid can’t string anything else together. Hotch thinks he’s _capable?_ Oh god… And his chest tightens further.

“And I…” Hotch’s hand twitches again. He looks at it and gently spreads it out over his thigh, silently daring it to move again without purpose. “What you feel… it isn’t failure. Don’t do that to yourself…”

“Do what?” Reid wheezes. Hotch looks up at him again, eyes worn and tired.

“Don’t condemn yourself. Like this is something you shouldn’t feel.”

Reid coughs, loudly and unhelpfully, and then has to gulp down some water to regain any use of his voice again. “But… I shouldn’t feel this. For you. It’ll… it’ll only hurt me, and it has no future.”

The statement comes out sharply and Hotch reacts as if it has physical force behind it, buffeting him. He quickly rises to his feet and turns away to face his desk.

“I’m sorry if it… hurts,” he says oddly. Reid is fighting too many things about himself at this moment to parse the confusing things Hotch is showing at the same time. But he knows he’s missing something here, right now, and it’s bothersome, like an itch you can’t reach.

“Yes, well, it does,” he says a bit unkindly. “Both physically and… in other ways. Have you ever loved someone you shouldn’t?” He doesn’t know why he asks.

“Yes,” Hotch mumbles without hesitation, his back still to Reid.

“Oh uh…” That catches Reid off guard. But he suddenly flares with hope that Hotch knows what to do next. After all, he has experience with this. Perhaps this day has a tiny silver lining… “Well, what did you do about it?”

Hotch turns to face him again. He manages to appear like he’s slouching while still sporting the straightest spine ever. “You withstand it. That’s all.”

Reid’s furtive hope sours instantly, and his gaze drifts to his sneakers. His fingers begin picking at the worn finish of his chair’s armrest.

“Shit,” he whispers. 

“It’s all right.” Hotch’s voice sounds a thousand miles away. “You get used to it, and then… it sort of fades into background noise. One day you’ll wake up and realize it doesn’t bother you and you haven’t thought about it in ages.”

Reid leans forward suddenly and presses his face into the palms of his hands to physically push back the rising heat of panic. His eyes start to sting against his eyelids, and he presses his palms harder until white globes flash in the darkness.

“Doesn’t say much for the constancy of love, does it?” he croaks because he can’t stand any more silence in this room. “You just have to wait to grow out of it…”

“It’s not like that for everyone.” Now Hotch sounds like he’s standing over him, like he couldn’t get closer unless he climbed into the chair with him. “But I’m sure it’ll fade away for you, and perhaps faster than you imagine. Since you don’t want it.”

Reid looks up and, yes, Hotch is _there_ , too close and looming over him with sympathy.

“People who want love and can’t have it… that prolongs the effect,” he affirms softly. “So, cheer up. You’ll be okay eventually. All that’s required is patience.”

“Really?” Reid breathes, both disheartened and hopeful at the same time. Hotch just nods sadly, and Reid can’t puzzle out what that means because his body is still vacillating wildly between agitation and calamity. “I just want to go back to the way things were…”

“And they will,” Hotch murmurs, and backs away tactfully. “I’ll help ensure it.”

“You will?” Reid can barely believe that he has a friend _this_ understanding. It’s a miracle he won’t overlook again, now that he can see it clearly.

“Of course.” Hotch turns and circles back around to his side of the desk, effectively reinforcing his commitment with a physical gap between them. “You are experiencing something disorienting and uncomfortable for you, and you are also worried about privacy, peer confidence and professional dignity. That is tremendously stressful. I certainly won’t add to that stress by making any of this about me.”

Hotch sits and folds his hands across his blotter. Then he looks Reid in the eye, ever the sturdy leader.

“I’m aware of the issue now, and I won’t do anything to exacerbate it. Hopefully, this conversation will already go some way to alleviate part of the anxiety you’re experiencing.”

Reid swallows awkwardly and then nods when Hotch appears as if he’s waiting on him. Then Hotch releases a long sigh and leans forward, shuffling in his suit jacket oddly.

“ _You_ decide how we interact now, Reid. _You_ decide what you can and cannot accept. I will wait on your cue and follow your lead here. You know now that I respect your judgement, both personally and professionally. And I will respect whatever choices you make here.” 

Reid is temporarily floored by this statement, and by the exhaustion that sneaks into Hotch’s expression. His affect is friendly and understanding, but his body language is all weariness and resignation. And suddenly, Reid’s fear coalesces into words in his mouth.

“This will change us,” he whispers. The lines around Hotch’s eyes seem to get a little deeper.

“Not in the ways that really matter, Reid,” Hotch says back quietly. “Not the way we trust each other with our lives. Not the way we trust the power of our minds. Not the way we rely on each other’s capabilities. Nothing will dim how impressive you are, Reid. My opinion of you will remain as it has been for years: quietly awed.”

Reid does nothing but blink for a handful of seconds. Hotch has never said any of this before; Reid’s never had the slightest insight into this deep, still reservoir of respect Hotch holds for him. And he’s momentarily possessed by a mad thought of what it would be like to be _loved_ by someone whose eyes already paint him with such reverent attention. He tries to imagine what that intellectual admiration would feel like translated into caresses, soft murmurs, warm embraces… He shakes his head, confused by the thought and the lack of suffocating panic at it, and then he looks back to Hotch and finds his gaze falling to his boss’s lips before he flicks it somewhere safer. He feels a spurt of adrenaline, but it’s not fear this time, and an image flickers briefly in his mind before it’s snuffed out: Hotch standing too close, his weariness erased as he leans in, eyes dilated with the awe he’s only just revealed…

_Oh._

Reid feels too warm everywhere and his pulse is so heavy and fast it should be vibrating his chair. But – he notes with odd clarity – there isn’t an ounce of shame in it this time. Interesting.

“Reid?” Hotch calls out softly. Dammit. Reid’s been staring at him in silence again.

“Yes?” Reid stutters, but Hotch just watches and waits. He’ll probably be that way from now on – observing and hesitant – and perhaps he’s wordlessly trying to let Reid know this. Reid nods as he sighs deeply.

“Yes, umm, yes. I appreciate that. The considerations, I mean. I appreciate you.”

His heart thrashes around wildly in his chest at his words and he chides himself with a vicious, silent, _Cool it!_

“I will do my best to keep this to myself. Not let it effect the work…” he finishes with lamely. Hotch sighs but doesn’t move a muscle.

“The point I was making was… do whatever you have to in order to feel comfortable, Reid. I will adjust accordingly. You lead, and I’ll follow.”

Reid’s eyes snap to Hotch as something rushes through him, lighting his veins on fire like a shot of opioids. He finds his breath lengthening, his tension easing as he gets the vaguest sensation of the floating that accompanies an impending high…

“You will?”

Hotch still doesn’t move, but something softens the lines at the corners of his eyes. “Of course. Always. You never have to ask.”

And then there’s nothing he can do but stare at his friend locked behind his immense desk and studied reserve, with something old and knowing and wordless leaking from the lines around his eyes. That this man would follow him, do whatever he asked… he’s just _so…_

“The way you care… the nature of it… it makes it hard not to get swamped by the moment.” It comes out choppy and unsure. 

Hotch just blinks a few times. “That wasn’t my intention.”

Reid suddenly finds motivation to move and stands abruptly. Hotch’s eyes follow him as if he isn’t sure what he’ll do next.

“I appreciate the nature of your care.”

“Okay…”

“Thank you. For… well, everything, I guess.”

Hotch stands too, his fingers trailing the surface of his desk lightly. “You’ll get through this. We both will. It’ll all be fine, Reid. I promise you.”

Reid nods and tries for a smile. Whether it’s genuine or not is up for debate, but Hotch humors him and returns it. Then Reid turns and walks out of Hotch’s office because there isn’t a single syllable left that will help either of them in this moment, and they both know it.


	2. The Regimen

Reid wanders from Hotch’s office in a slightly aggravating fog.

“So, what happened?” Emily asks after Reid slides down into his office chair and shines on the professional curiosity of the entire sixth floor now focused on him.

“He said he understands,” he sighs, ducking his face to hide his flaming cheeks.

“Really.”

“He said it doesn’t change how he thinks of me, and that the feelings will subside in time.”

“Really.” Emily says it flatter this time. Reid looks up and finds her behind an unreadable mask that makes him scowl.

“Yeah. He said he’ll follow my lead. Whatever makes me comfortable.”

“Really.” This time it’s so dry it should come in a martini glass.

“Stop saying, _‘Really’_ like that,” he growls. “This is what you said he’d do, right? He’s my friend and he’s going to help me through this.”

“Oh, I knew he’d help you, Reid, I just didn’t expect _this_ from him.” Her eyebrows pop up, breaking her perfect mask of blandness. “But he’s always treated you with care…”

Her voice drifts away along with her stare until Reid is left alone with her sitting across from him, _thinking_.

“What do you mean?” he says eventually, irked by her opaqueness. Her eyelashes flutter, as if mildly alarmed to be pulled away from her thoughts.

“How do you feel?” she deflects.

It’s his turn to blink too much. “I dunno. A little better, I suppose. It’s nice to know I’m not dying, and it’s also nice to know Hotch won’t recoil from the embarrassment I’ve imposed upon him.”

Emily’s lips quirk as she suppresses something salty. Reid just sighs.

“But I guess I’m also disappointed too.”

“Disappointed?”

He nods slowly, looking at his shoes. “Yeah. That all of this is meaningless. That it’s just a mistake and will fade with time. I always imagined love was… was _more_ , ya know?”

Emily lets out a long, slow breath. “I think love lets us all down that way.”

She wheels her office chair next to his and reaches for his hand, giving it a solid squeeze until his eyes find hers again. She’s smiling, but it’s a sad, knowing smile, a lot like Hotch’s.

“I’m still not a fan,” he chokes out just to erase that sad smile with a genuine one. And he succeeds. 

“Smart choice,” she chuckles and squeezes his fingers as he squeezes back. “Whaddaya say we drown this day in alcohol tonight? My treat. And we won’t talk about love at all.”

“Yeah. To hell with love,” he murmurs, imagining the joy of returning to an unmoved version of himself at some point in his future.

\------ 

He doesn’t know what to expect from Hotch other than for him to keep his promise. Because he always keeps his promises without fail. But Hotch’s revised presence in Reid’s day-to-day life can only be described by a single word: diffident. He is quiet and respectful to such a degree that should be noticed by _everyone_ , but he somehow also manages to be invisible with it, even while giving orders in the field or directing profile sessions in a musty squad room somewhere. Sometimes, Reid can’t remember seeing him for days at a time, though his instructions and suggestions float through his head as he bends his intellect to whatever task is asked of him. When he realizes this, Reid is immediately envious of this talent and wants to learn it. And this thought is always quickly followed by loneliness at missing his friend. 

The distance is helpful, of course, and the respect is appreciated. Within a month, Reid has edged away from panic completely, feeling almost himself again, twitchy and fascinated and marshalling an incredible focus once more. But with his anxiety resolved, he feels other impulses more acutely. Loss, rejection, self-doubt, longing… the subtler effects of his condition he couldn’t appreciate when he was busy trying to choke on his words or restart his heart when Hotch walked into a room. 

“I feel terrible in a completely new way,” he mumbles to Emily one day over the rim of his coffee cup. “I no longer think I’m dying, but these… _leftover_ emotions kinda make me wish I was.”

Emily smirks and sips her coffee. “You’re progressing nicely,” is all she says.

Two months after that, Reid takes his first conscious, leading step back towards Hotch. The team filters into the conference room for a Monday morning case review, and Reid takes a seat two chairs away from where Hotch is seated, scowling at a file folder. He waits as Hotch’s gaze rises to find him much closer than his traditional seat at the farthest end of the table. His expression is neutral, but his eyebrows arch minutely – Reid is certain only he notices the reaction as the others settle around him. Hotch stares a moment longer, and though nothing about him changes, something _warms_ in Reid’s estimation, and then Hotch taps his file folder to begin the meeting. 

The shift is subtle. Reid now finds himself in rooms with Hotch. He is _aware_ of him in these rooms, as if Hotch has suddenly dropped the invisibility spell he’s cloaked himself in for months. He hears Hotch’s voice, still at a respectful distance across these rooms, but it’s no longer a curious memory of an interaction he can’t place. Reid’s eyes find him now: bent over his paperwork as Reid packs up for the night, leaning in the doorframe of Rossi’s office, arms folded in a casual slouch of amiable conversation that his suit fights at every crease and fold, or strapping on his Kevlar in a forgotten squad room, scowling and distant, mind bent to the moment just ahead of them. Reid collects these candid snapshots in his mind and pulls them apart when he’s alone. He unpacks how each one makes him feel. The good reactions are pride and thankfulness that he can call this man his friend, that he does not have to hide how he admires his capability. These things are acceptable. His other reactions are craving and anticipation that he can collect more of these moments, grief that he can only experience them as an observer, and a pulsing need as his mind sweeps over the lines of Hotch’s suit or the crease at the side of his mouth when he speaks. These are _un_ acceptable and deeply disheartening.

“How are you doing?” Emily asks casually too early one morning in Denver.

“Unfortunately, still in love,” he says back without hesitation. Emily’s eyebrows tell him she wasn’t asking about _that_ , but then she shrugs and cradles her take-out coffee close.

“Hmmm.” She blows across her coffee to cool it but doesn’t offer anything else.

More months pass. So many marking the distance from his strangled, mortifying revelation to this revised reality of gentle circling. And still, his body tightens noticeably when Hotch appears, his pulse quickens, his eyes linger when they shouldn’t. And he mourns how they’ve changed. The loss of late-night phone conversations about pathologies, the terrible ‘Dad jokes’ Hotch no longer tests out on him, the absence of the begrudging smile Hotch gives him when Reid beats him at chess on the jet. Though Hotch promised they’d retain all the things that matter, they have still _lost._

Then something happens.

Reid walks through the darkened bullpen towards the elevators and finds the patient silhouette of Hotch waiting next to the lit call button. Reid’s pulse speeds up and his mouth gets dry, but he’s used to it by now; no more bothersome than the nervous twitching of his hands. He feels himself smiling as he draws up beside him, and then he feels the slight surprise when Hotch shifts to look at him.

“You’re leaving early for once,” Reid murmurs, pleased.

“Or you’re leaving late,” Hotch counters warmly. “Either way, we both spend too much time in this building.”

“Agreed,” he chuckles and it feels _so good._

Silence settles over them for an instant. In the distance, Reid hears a vacuum start up in one of the offices.

“I saw the results from your latest firearms recertification,” Hotch begins without warning, eyes fixed forward to the elevator. “They were impressive.”

Reid turns to look at him and waits as Hotch slowly looks back.

“By your standards?”

“By anyone’s standards,” Hotch smiles. “It’s difficult to believe that you were once in danger of shooting your foot off.”

Reid’s chest swells with an immense feeling of ability. It is warm, like embers smoldering behind his ribs. At the center of those embers, you know there’s enough heat to burn yourself.

“I’m pretty sure you were the only one who imagined me footless on the firing range.”

Hotch laughs gently, and it shakes his whole body. “Everyone worried about it. I was the only one who said it aloud.”

“Well. Thanks a lot.” Reid aims to sound insulted but can’t manage it past the laughing he’s doing himself.

“It doesn’t matter now. You’ve mastered it. Clearly.”

He can’t get over how much he craves Hotch’s regard. It’s worse than drugs. He’d probably steal, maim, start wars to get it. It is emotional, sexual… almost a physical nourishment. It’s well beyond a kink, he realizes; it’s hedging its way into paraphilia. 

“I just listened to your instruction,” he murmurs, cheeks getting warm but still smiling from the praise. “And I practiced.”

“That’s too flattering,” Hotch leans a little closer, but not _too_ much. “I’ll imagine myself able to teach anyone to be a marksman.”

“Or a killer,” Reid adds without thinking, and then worries about how he’ll take it. But Hotch’s laugh comes back in spades, rippling out of him and echoing off the walls.

“Well then, better keep that to yourself.” Hotch’s expression is undiluted and alive, and Reid feels a toothy grin get away from him as he soaks it up greedily. He thinks, _this is what I want, unadulterated HIM…_ , and then surprises himself when he wonders if that’s part of being in love or something else. Because he’s wanted that from Hotch for a very long time.

The elevator dings softly, and then the doors slide open. Their laughter dims, and Reid steps inside, but when he turns to face the doors, Hotch is still in the hallway with a smile on his lips.

“Goodnight, Reid. I’ll catch the next one.”

Reid steps forward and stalls the doors with his hand. “That’s not necessary,” he says quietly. “Please, join me.”

He watches Hotch’s eyebrows twitch in surprise, but he steps forward into the elevator without hesitation, moving himself to the opposite end of the cab to give them plenty of space. It’s the closest they’ve been in eight months.

The doors close and they both fall silent, but it isn’t uncomfortable. Reid remembers the last time Hotch was within his reach – crouching before him in his office, his hand restless along his thigh and a sadness in the air around him – and he recognizes how painstaking the distance that followed was. Hotch put a lot of effort into it. For him. And here they are eight months later, but what has been achieved is a greater understanding of Reid’s impulses, not a lessening of them. Still, Reid doesn’t feel upset or pressured in the confines of the silent elevator. He’s not on the verge of a panic attack or wanting to climb the walls to escape. He is floating in the libidinous silence between them that is knowing and measured. It feels like tangling their fingers together, and for once he’s not ashamed of what he feels.

“I’ve missed this,” he murmurs as the lights above the doors count down to their release.

“I’ve missed it also.”

Reid looks at him just as the chime dings and the doors open to the central lobby. Hotch is staring at him, his expression still undiluted, but now it’s wistful. They remain unmoving for a moment, then Hotch gestures for Reid to take the lead. Reid steps into the lobby in a haze of confusion, and Hotch follows at a respectful distance.

_What did he… what is this?_

They pass through the front doors and head for the parking lot in silence. Hotch walks beside him, his hands clasped behind him as he strides, half in contemplation and half steadfastly moving forward. The parking lot is massive, but they don’t say a thing as they meander through the maze of cars until they reach Reid’s Amazon. Then they both pull up and Reid finds himself breathless as he stares at Hotch’s shadows in the parking lot halogens.

“Goodnight,” Hotch murmurs, too quiet and warm by far.

Reid swallows hard and feels their invisibly-linked fingers slide apart. “Goodnight.”

Hotch turns and walks away. His car is at the opposite end of the lot.


	3. Concomitant Condition

The elevator represents some unspoken shift for Reid and Hotch. Almost overnight, distance is no longer a conscious issue. Reid can sit next to Hotch during a briefing, or across from him on the jet without worrying about whether it sends the wrong message. His impulses towards Hotch remain inappropriately personal, but Reid realizes that no one else notices. And Hotch isn’t put off by it. If anything, he seems pleased by the new proximity.

 _He thinks I’m getting past this. He’s proud of me…_ Reid thinks with a mixture of joy and disappointment. Because he’s _not_ getting past this, but he enjoys the thought of Hotch’s approval regardless. 

As they slowly inch their way towards a full year since his panicked confession in Hotch’s office, Reid starts to worry about the nature of his recovery. Emily said it would wear off in time; Hotch told him that love only lingers in those who want it. The resilience of his feelings suggest that Reid hasn’t been very insightful about this from the beginning. Did he want to be in love after all?

“You and Hotch seem to be okay again,” Emily boozily breezes at him one evening at a post-case celebration in one of D.C.’s more questionable watering holes. Her eyes are sparkling and mischievous, and she’s draped herself around him in a way that causes Morgan to hoot at them from across the dance floor. Honestly, these people are terrible busybodies. How can he love them all so much?

“So, you worked it out, huh?” she persists, through a cloud of tequila.

Reid shrugs and takes a liberal swig of his own glass of poison. “Not really. But there’s no sense in making him feel bad about it endlessly.”

Emily shuffles until she realigns herself on the banquette next to him, her gaze blurry but serious. “What? You’ve still got the hots for him? Does he know that?”

Reid sighs, his eyes finding Hotch at the bar with Rossi, chatting idly and waiting on the next round, looking implacably put together even though he’s buzzed.

“My feelings are persistently annoying,” Reid breathes, and then he forces his eyes back to Emily. She seems a little unnerved. “And no, I haven’t mentioned this to him. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring it up either.”

“But Reid-”

“Listen, we discussed it once. That was bad enough. Then he did everything short of standing on his head to make me feel comfortable. It’s not his fault that I can’t let this go. Discussing it again won’t help either of us.”

“I disagree.” It comes out flat and forceful. When Reid looks at her, she seems to have sobered up completely in less than a minute. “Strongly.”

Reid blinks at her for a handful of seconds. “Emily, what do you expect him to do? Do you think he’ll just listen to me confess my feelings _again_ , and then suddenly decide that he feels the same way?”

“Yeah, maybe,” she responds, and then waves away his sputtering denial too aggressively with her drink, sloshing them both. “I think it’s a safe bet to assume that there’s a lot going on inside Hotch that no one ever knows about. I don’t know if he’s into you, but I wouldn’t toss aside the possibility, Reid. You two have always been way tighter than average buddies – that’s all I’m sayin’.”

He holds her stare for too long. “You’re drunk.”

“Yep, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“I think it might.”

“Listen, man, you’re still in love.” She leans hard into his personal space. “It’s not some accidental misfiring of your neuroreceptors. It’s been, like, a year and you’re still hot for his toddy…”

“Jesus, Em…” He rolls his eyes at her. “It’s not like that.”

“Which proves my point.” She points at him and spills the rest of her drink on his vest. “You aren’t thinking with your dick. It’s all this.” She jabs his chest, right over his heart. “You told me you didn’t want to be in love, but I kinda think that maybe you do. Otherwise you’d be over it by now. You have a short attention span for things that bore you.”

“He’s not boring,” he growls, and she waves it away.

“Not the point I was making, genius. Unwanted emotional entanglements are boring, especially to a guy like you who’s never placed a lot of value on them in the first place.”

“I’m starting to feel a little insulted. I thought we were friends.”

“We are,” she nods and grins at him without warning. “But the fact of the matter is you’re a thirty-year-old man who’s never seen the point or necessity of romantic love. It wasn’t important or interesting enough to pursue. Until now. Now it won’t go away, which means you’ve placed _value_ on it. Hotch has value to you.”

“Of course he does,” he says too emphatically.

“So, that means it’s not a mistake, Reid.” Emily’s gaze gets soft. “This isn’t about you getting your emotional wires crossed because of inexperience. You guys are connected somehow – it’s a real thing, not something you made up in your head. Are you really prepared to never ask him about it? Is it really more embarrassing to ask than to always wonder ‘what if’?”

Reid’s heart jams into his throat and he chokes. His hand shakes badly enough that he has to skim his half-filled glass across the sticky table in front of him so it doesn’t end up on his vest with Emily’s drink. Her fingers are digging into his shoulder – he doesn’t know when she grabbed him – and they tighten as his miserable silence lengthens.

“He’s heterosexual,” Reid gulps.

“You’re assuming.”

His gaze hardens on hers. “It’s not an assumption. He was married.”

“Was,” she shrugs simply, which he finds infuriating. She isn’t risking _anything_ by provoking him this way. The danger is all on his end.

“He dated Beth for a year.”

“And he showed more interest in the motor pool SUVs than her,” Emily huffs. “Her dullness could be seen from space. Do you really think someone so average could capture his attention and keep it? He gets bored easily the same way you do.”

Reid sees Hotch’s warm regard as they discuss his firearms results by the elevator. He hears him say that he admires him, like the admiration is something he polishes and holds close. Reid feels the strange floating he gets when they are alone together, like he’s getting a contact high from his presence. And his body turns these sensations against him and sends them snaking down his spine like an electric charge.

His face heats and he shakes the thoughts away. “He knows how I feel, and he’s never done anything even remotely suggestive.”

Emily makes a rude sound that she’d only stoop to while drunk. “He _doesn’t_ know – not all of it, anyway – and do you think he’d try anything after you climbed Anderson last year trying to get away from him? He’s not a fucking mind reader, you know…”

Reid feels his jaw drop and his brain shut down at what she’s suggesting. “Why… why are you doing this, Em?”

Emily sighs dramatically, like this situation is much more painful for her than him. “Because I’m tired of watching this dance. It was amusing in the beginning, but now I’m just bored with the lack of progress.” 

Reid feels his brows lower and his face heat again, this time with anger. 

“I’m tired of watching you suffer,” she continues, her tone changing to something quieter. “I want you to find the balls to either discover how Hotch feels or to break your heart. Because you won’t find peace until one of those two things happens.”

“Well… that’s my decision to make, and I won’t let your frustration become the litmus test for the caliber of my balls…”

“Caliber of what?”

Reid looks over his shoulder and finds Hotch staring at him with his eyebrows lost in his hairline while Rossi doubles over in glee beside him.

“Uh…” Reid panics and wonders how much Hotch overheard. Then Emily steps up to make things mortifying again.

“His balls. The man baubles. Cajones. The royal jewels,” she smirks, and then Hotch’s eyebrows focus on her. Rossi is laughing so hard now he spills one of the beers he’s holding.

“This is great,” Rossi gasps. “What the FUCK did I miss?”

Then Hotch does something Reid wouldn’t have predicted in a thousand years. “Is the assessment to be aesthetic, functional, or figurative? If it’s anything other than figurative, we can’t do it here.”

Rossi shoves his drinks onto the table and then grapples the banquette to keep from falling to the floor. His face is bright red and a subtle sheen has broken out across his forehead with the effort of his hilarity. Reid is just staring at Hotch like he’s never met him before. Hotch places his collective drinks on the table too, and then turns and gives Reid the quickest of winks.

“If it’s a physical assessment, this ought to be a panel discussion. I’m not taking your word on the matter, Prentiss.” Hotch slides into the banquette right next to Reid. They aren’t touching, but Reid can feel the heat of him along his side. And he can’t tear his eyes away from him.

Emily blinks as if she might have temporarily slipped into an alternate universe, and then she guffaws without warning. Rossi pushes her until she shuffles aside enough to let him sit, and then they collapse against each other, laughing and swatting at each other.

“What is happening right now?” Reid doesn’t realize he’s said it until it is already out of his mouth.

Hotch faces him and gives him a subtle smile. “We’re joking about your balls, Reid,” he rumbles and then fakes a look of concern. “At least, I hope we’re joking…”

Reid suddenly loses his mind. He feels its presence, and then, a second later, its utter absence. His entire being wants to drag Hotch from that banquette, find a dim corner somewhere in this bar, and attack him so hard Hotch will have to write a use of force citation afterwards. He can see Hotch’s shocked expression in his imagination, he feels the stiff wool of Hotch’s lapel crushed in is grip as he holds them together, he hears the gasp a moment before his mouth crashes into Hotch’s. And he bites, he strains, he twists his fingers too tightly in Hotch’s hair. The heat is so real, he breaks out into a sweat even though he’s just sitting and staring at his boss. The molestation only exists in the echoing emptiness where his intellect used to live. And he’s hard all over. Thank god he’s sitting down.

“Reid? Hey, Reid…” Hotch’s voice isn’t amused anymore. It’s concerned. Reid struggles to yank his brain back into place, and then suffers a frustrating delay while it tries to reboot on him.

_Fuck. Maybe I should’ve quit when I had the chance. I’m turning him into a full-bodied obsession…_

“Sorry,” he croaks eventually. “Just drunk.”

“So am I,” Hotch smirks and then lets it fall away. “Sorry if my inappropriateness upset you. I… I get sillier when I’m hammered. It really was an innocent joke, I swear…”

Reid smirks back, silently thinking there isn’t much that’s innocent about discussing a co-worker’s genitals, but he’ll let that slide. “It’s okay. You can’t be expected to be serious all the time. I know you meant nothing by it.”

_Nothing at all. No desire to shock me, or kiss me until I can’t catch my breath, or get into my pants…_

Hotch’s expression goes neutral in the blink of an eye, but Reid still notices. What Hotch says next, in the escalating din of the bar, makes Reid focus on him even more.

“No one ever sees what I mean.” Hotch’s eyes flick away quickly to some spot over Reid’s shoulder, but his non-expression never falters. “That’s the price I have to pay.”

Reid’s pulse speeds up so quickly he gets lightheaded, which isn’t helped by the booze. He leans closer, and Hotch’s gaze snaps to his movement immediately.

“What does that mean?” Reid whispers and still tries to be heard above the music and the ambient noise.

Hotch never gets a chance to answer as Morgan, Garcia and J.J. choose that moment to return from the dance floor and flop into the banquette, smooshing everyone together. Morgan loops an arm around Hotch’s shoulder in a way he’d never do while sober, and grins.

“So, what are we talkin’ about?”

“Balls!” Rossi hoots, and Emily falls into laughter again.

“What?” J.J. looks concerned. Or confused.

“Whose balls? Or just, balls in general?” Garcia demands clarification.

“Reid’s balls, or lack thereof,” Emily chuckles and the newcomers’ eyebrows rise in unison.

“Did we reach a conclusion?” Morgan’s brow creases and he directs his question to Hotch.

“A consensus hasn’t been achieved yet, no,” he smirks back.

“I can’t believe we’re still talking about this…” Reid sighs, then he feels Emily snuggle up to him.

“We’ll keep talking until you _do_ something about it. Promise,” she whispers in his ear.

And he realizes, drunk or not, she’s right. The ball, so to speak, is in his court.

\---- 

It takes Reid forever to work up the courage to just boldly presume. He waits until the bullpen clears out, then he fusses over his choices until security tells him that his take-out has arrived. After that, he’s committed, or he’s eating a lot of Chinese food by himself.

He knocks softly, but Hotch still hears him. His expression melts from a scowl the moment he recognizes Reid in the doorway burdened with bags of food.

“What’s this then?” he rumbles while flashing Reid the smallest of smiles. Reid’s pulse does something crazy on him, but he swallows and strides into the room anyway.

“Dinner. I thought you might be hungry, so I ordered extra.”

Hotch makes an odd sound, like he’s clearing his throat but also that he’s afraid he’s being too loud about it. “Thank you, Reid. That’s very considerate of you.”

Reid’s whole body warms as he places the bags on Hotch’s desk and begins unpacking them.

“You work too hard,” he says softly, then after an anxious moment where he internally debates if that was too intimate, he follows it up with, “I’ll be quiet so you can keep working if you want. Just remember to eat it while it’s hot.”

Hotch makes a ‘hmmm’ sound and Reid collects his containers and quickly retreats to the sofa without looking him in the eye.

They sit and eat in silence, the buzz of the sixth floor ever-present but muffled to a distant hum beyond Hotch’s office door. The building seems to have a life of its own, even after dark when most of the agents go home, the noise of useful _thinking_ seems to remain. Reid watches Hotch carefully from his perch on the sofa across the room; he hasn’t gone back to his paperwork and that makes Reid unreasonably happy. Hotch’s lips curl as he roots through his take-out container with chopsticks.

“This is nice,” he murmurs, and then his eyes flick to Reid. Reid feels himself bloom a little under the praise and sighs at his own uselessness. “I haven’t had dinner company in I don’t know how long. Except Jack, of course.” Hotch’s smile gets a little bigger as he chews his stir-fry.

“We haven’t said a word to each other since I sat down.”

“We don’t have to. Do we?” Hotch murmurs, and Reid feels his cheeks heat. “That’s the nice part.”

“I guess that _is_ nice. I’m always so used to filling up empty space with language, theories, facts…”

“Quiet is a powerful adjunct to any language,” Hotch leans back in his chair as if he were next to Reid on the sofa and not behind a desk. “It is emphasis and assurance. Those who can exist calmly within it have a kind of power that’s difficult to quantify.”

Reid stops chewing and watches Hotch’s expression. It is half-shadowed from his desk lamp, but he is at ease, relaxed even. 

“Then you must have a great deal of personal power,” Reid mumbles and is glad the office’s lighting might hide his growing blush. Hotch shrugs and digs back into his meal.

“I don’t know about that. I’m just used to it is all. Silence can also be about confusion, not knowing what to say or how to react…”

“Well, now we’re hedging into my area of expertise.” Reid smirks around a mouthful of noodles and Hotch smirks back. His chest feels like it’s filled with fireworks primed to explode and he silently laments that he hasn’t made any real progress in getting past this feeling yet. _What will it take?_

“You don’t have to talk. With me, I mean,” Hotch murmurs. “Or you can talk as much as you want. Whatever makes you comfortable.”

_You take the lead, and I’ll follow…_

Reid rolls off the way Hotch’s words close the distance between them in the office. He had no idea consideration could feel so intimate.

“I just always feel like I _should_ talk, ya know? But then I get caught up on what I should say. Obviously, I don’t talk much when I’m not around people. I don’t feel the same pressure to fill up the air with words when I’m at home.”

“You live alone.” Hotch says it like that explains everything. Reid watches for judgement lingering in that statement but finds none. “The lack of expectation can be soothing.”

Reid blinks. Does Hotch envy his isolation? Hotch takes in his expression and shrugs again.

“I grew up in a mostly-typical family home. I had a sibling. Then I married and had a family of my own. But most of the time I felt isolated in each of those situations. Others routinely misunderstood my silence while simultaneously expecting me to understand and respond to their reactions. Much of my life has been a performance to please others.”

Reid puts his fork down and pushes his dinner away. Hotch has never confided like this before. He feels the air crackle with a dangerous, connective quality that will considerably set back his efforts to shake loose of this man. He leans forward too eagerly and laces his fingers together.

“If you knew that about yourself, why did you keep doing it? Why not try for something different?”

Hotch’s eyes flick away, like he’s keeping something contained by lowering the blinds on his honesty. He moves his dinner around in the container for a long time before continuing.

“Maybe I thought I’d develop a taste for it. That way of being. And it was expected of me. It seemed… normal.”

“Normal?”

Hotch nods, still not looking at him. “But I’m middle-aged now. I know this is something about me that won’t change. I can connect with people, just not in the usual way. And the connections that really matter – the ones I value most – are rare and tinged with tragedy and violence.”

He looks up finally. “Like the team. The people in this unit have always been closer to me than a traditional family.”

Reid nods without thought. The few times he’s been asked what his relationship status is, his mind always burps up an image of the team. He always shakes it away, but the persistence of that response is hard to ignore.

“When the call comes, we all drop what we’re doing. We leave who we’re with, we abandon our plans. Nights, weekends, holidays…” Hotch continues. “It’s hard for others to understand, and it’s a bitter pill to swallow for oneself too.”

Reid raises a questioning eyebrow. Hotch sighs, deep and low.

“The relationship I’m most committed to is this.” He gestures around his office and the bullpen beyond it. “And I resent it.”

“You… resent it? Why?”

“A job, an institution will never love you. It just demands and rarely offers anything in return. I may enjoy silence too much, Reid, but that doesn’t mean I want to be alone for the rest of my life. But anyone who might want to be a part of my silence will always come a distant second to this faceless, impersonal commitment I can’t find a way to shake off.” He sighs again. “No one wants to be an ‘also-ran’ in a relationship.”

“I… I had no idea you felt this way…” Reid doesn’t know what else to say, but, for once, it seems important that he _does_ fill the silence with words.

“If I could give you one piece of advice, Reid, it would be don’t give yourself to this job. Don’t ignore the strange and awkward pull of other people for the illusion of a ‘meaningful’ commitment to the Bureau. You’ll always find your life wanting.”

Hotch pauses and just stares at him from across the room. And if sadness had a physical form, it would’ve pulled up a chair next to Hotch and asked him to pass the soy sauce.

“Find someone who understands your silence. Or your clutter of words. Find someone who wants to live in it with you and hold onto them with all you have. That’s the only thing I’ve learned in twenty years.”

Reid feels tight everywhere, from his toenails to the ends of his curls. Hotch doesn’t move or make a grand display at all; he’s barely even raised his voice above a murmur this whole time. But every inch of his office is now primed with an unignorable urgency. He means this with every fiber of him, and it’s almost like he’s physically pushing Reid out into the world with his words, urging him to run away, to escape. Reid’s never, _never_ had a moment that screamed so loudly at him before.

But he knows he won’t take this advice. Not now he understands Hotch is remaining here, inside something unloving and destructive, surviving on his silence and the occasional hug from Jack.

_You’ve trapped me. As surely as if you strode across the room and kissed me. I’m screwed for good, and you don’t even know you’ve done it, do you?_

The charge in the air stretches and then dissipates, and finally Reid huffs and sags back into the sofa like this has been any other conversation.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he dismisses. “But there hasn’t been much demand for me as a domestic partner, so I’m not sure how relevant the advice is.”

“Well, you haven’t been trying, have you?”

Reid glances up to find Hotch smirking at him. Smirking?

“It’s harder to achieve a goal without a target in mind.” Hotch picks his dinner up again, still smiling. “But that will change someday. Your priorities shift as you get older, so the advice might be useful down the road…”

_I’d hold onto you right now if you asked me to. Age has nothing to do with it._

Reid shakes the thought away, but his mouth betrays him.

“Would you take your own advice?”

Reid glances up, shocked at himself, and finds Hotch looking at him equally shocked.

“If… if you found someone who understood your silence, I mean…” Reid sputters. “Would you… hold onto them, knowing how you tend to place work above all else?”

Hotch continues staring at Reid until it’s uncomfortable. Then he sighs and lets his gaze slip away, rocking back into his chair and well out of the desk lamp light.

“I don’t know.” He rummages through his stir fry with his chopsticks but doesn’t take a bite. “It’s unlikely I’ll find someone who’s okay with my silence, so I suppose I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Your silence doesn’t bother me,” Reid blurts and feels a scorch of heat race across him in humiliation. “I mean… if I’m fine with it, I’m sure there’d be others as well.”

Hotch is mostly in shadow but Reid can still feel his stare even though he can’t see it. Maybe that’s kinder – he has no clue if he just overstepped or embarrassed him. But he also has no insight into Hotch’s personal reaction either. Emily’s voice echoes through Reid’s head, telling him to man up or to break his heart so he can finally move forward. The dim outline of Hotch moves until his hands edge into the lamp light to place his food on the desk.

“Long ago I came to the realization that I’d never get what I want,” Hotch mumbles.

Reid’s chest gets tight. Did Hotch decide that when Haley filed for divorce? When she was killed? Or did it happen when he gave up on Beth and the concept of companionship?

“There may be others like you out there,” Hotch continues softly. “But I think my chances are slim for happiness at this point.” 

Reid’s body lights up with manic energy. He has a desperate need to move, to march over to that desk and let everything out. 

_I’m in love with you. Still. If there’s ever been a temptation in you, for me… I’d take you on in a heartbeat. I’d take you as you are. You don’t have to merely survive your life, Aaron. There’s still time to live it…_

But he stays right where he is, rooted to the sofa in his own self-imposed silence. Never good at the personal stuff, right? he chides himself as bitterness snakes its way between his ribs. Emily was right after all: he’ll spend forever not knowing because he’s not courageous enough for the alternative. He picks up his meal again and rummages through it without much interest. He doesn’t look at Hotch, too wrapped up in the sudden swamp of anger inside him. Then his statement – _my chances are slim for happiness_ – rises to the surface and provokes something surprisingly barbed and truthful.

“Well, I guess you’re not really trying either, are you?” he mumbles before he can be shocked by it.

He glances up and Hotch has gone stone still across the room. Reid feels his cheeks burn and he moves his gaze back to his meal. There is silence after that, but it isn’t comfortable. Reid keeps eating but his noodles turn into a cold, painful lump in his stomach. Eventually, it’s just too much, and he packs up his lukewarm dinner and clears his throat apologetically.

“I’ll let you get back to work,” he murmurs and makes a beeline of the door.

“Reid, the food…” Hotch calls out, and he sounds caught off guard.

“Keep the extra. Take it home for Jack. Leftovers means one less meal to worry about making, right?”

“True,” Hotch hedges, still sounding unsure. “Reid…”

“See you tomorrow.” He turns and forces a smile, having no idea if it’s convincing or pathetic. “Don’t stay too late.”

He escapes to the bullpen, collects things from his desk, and then finally shuffles into the shelter of the elevator. The relief is so palpable he’s almost panting. But he knows the reprieve is temporary – he’ll have to come back tomorrow and face it again. Over and over and over with no hope of a different outcome unless _he_ creates it.

As the elevator doors slide open to the lobby and he says goodnight to the night shift security guys, Reid’s mind suddenly offers him a new avenue out of his tangled, emotional labyrinth. It’s solitary and frightening, but straight as an arrow and completely uncomplicated, which is soothing in itself. He walks outside and looks up at the muted twinkling of the stars strong enough to break through the light pollution, and he breathes. He spends a long time doing that and considering the caliber of his balls.


	4. The Mesa Gravedigger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea behind the case in this chapter was shamelessly borrowed from [Consenting to Dream by emungere](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1295044/chapters/2686558) (different fandom, different pairing). It struck my imagination so completely, I couldn't help myself. She also references a haiku by Kobayashi Issa in that work, which I have used as well.

Five days later, he’s standing on abandoned scrub land just outside Las Cruces, New Mexico staring down at two skeletal bodies in a broken coffin at the bottom of a washout caused by a sudden rainfall. Their clothes are rags and they’ll only be identified if their dental records can be found. It’s a guess, but he thinks they’ve been dead a long time, possibly decades. It’s an unusual scene, yes, but if it was just about them, the team wouldn’t have flown down here. He stands over them as CSI techs take photos and collect evidence. Their bones are intertwined, as if embracing each other as they died.

Reid sighs and climbs out of the washout to the ridge above where more CSI techs are sweating as they take more photos, bag more evidence, and unearth more bodies. Twenty-seven graves so far. Fifty-four bodies – always two in each untreated, pine coffin. _That’s_ why the team flew down.

He walks down the line of graves. It is pin-straight, and each grave is exactly the same depth. Someone took pride in this precision. He has to respect that given the location is so remote, these bodies never should’ve been discovered in the first place. Most are badly decomposed; some are skeletons like the ones in the washout. A few are almost recognizably human, but only a few. The evidence team has set up tents over each grave to keep the flies down and to protect everyone from the southwestern sun, but they don’t have enough and have had to send out calls to other jurisdictions for more.

Reid walks the line slowly, not acknowledging anyone as he goes. The Las Cruces homicide division is in an uproar about this – the number of corpses suggesting that they dropped the ball for years on missing persons in the area. He doesn’t have time for their hostile, latent guilt, and leaves them to Hotch and J.J. who are both better at convincing people to cooperate than he is. The forensics teams, on the other hand, are acting like it’s Christmas. Las Cruces has never had a crime like this before, and their eyes almost gleam with the stories they plan to tell about it in the years to come. _Back when I worked the Mesa Gravedigger case…_ Yes, they’ve already given this one a name, and he hopes it doesn’t get out to the press. It won’t make much of a difference to the investigation, but it builds a mythos around the killer and he disapproves of that. This time more than most. Something is bothering him about this…

He walks the line. The bodies are all very different. Men and women, young and old, different ethnic backgrounds, perhaps different orientations and origins as well… They won’t know until they’ve been identified and traced. But Garcia will find them. She always finds them. He’s already decided that they aren’t all local. Las Cruces is big, but not big enough for fifty-four people to go missing and not be noticed, even if it took years.

In almost every open coffin, the couples are holding each other. Some are face to face, legs curled, and arms locked around their bodies. Some seem as if they died kissing or breathing one another’s last breath. Some are spooned close. Reid’s chest constricts as he passes tableaux after tableaux of desperate comfort. He imagines the claustrophobia, the screaming and the exhaustion that follows as their oxygen runs low. He knows they were all buried alive because of the claw marks inside the coffins. Some have fist marks and torn fingernails. All of them fought to get out. And, at some point, all of them gave into the inevitable. They gave up hope and clung to each other instead. Reid wonders if dying _with_ someone is better than being alone. Is that the point of this?

Three of the graves reveal couples who aren’t curled together. They are back to back, ignoring the person they’re dying with. Somehow, this makes Reid’s chest hurt more. Who would deny themselves comfort in the end?

He reaches the final grave. It’s the freshest, but it’s at least six months old, according to a local tech. It’s being ignored for the moment because they don’t have a tent for it yet. It’s been excavated, and the lid has been removed, but everything else is untouched. This grave bothers Reid the most. There’s something about it that screams in a non-specific way. He stops and stares, tries to let its oddity amongst the precision seep into him like groundwater. The couple is an older man and a teenaged boy – maybe fifteen or sixteen. A grandfather and grandson perhaps? The man’s clothes are poor and have been mended over and over. It’s obvious even through the decay. The boy’s clothes seem newer. Morgan pointed out he’s wearing running shoes that are limited edition. Maybe they aren’t related, which makes this more disturbing. The boy’s body is hugging the man, his head against his chest tucked just under the man’s long beard. The man’s hands cradle the boy, one around his shoulders, and the other cupping the back of his skull in a way that suggests such tenderness that Reid swings back to the idea that they’re related. You don’t hold someone like that unless you love them. There are two other things which stick out: there are almost no signs of struggle inside this coffin, and the grave was poorly covered. This one was an obvious hump in the seared, packed land spreading out in either direction. It was the reason why the responding detectives suggested the crime scene techs expand their evidence search. That’s what led to the other graves. The precision of this final grave doesn’t match the others, but the victims and the _flavor_ of the crime does, and this contradiction is turning Reid’s brain inside out.

And, just like that, a horrifying theory bursts to life in his mind and floods him with the kind of sorrow that will mark him from this day forward.

“Oh god… we walk on the roof of hell…” he whispers.

“What was that, Doctor Reid?”

Reid jumps and finds Detective Marquez, lead investigator from Las Cruces homicide, staring at him like he’s about to arrest him. His hands are on his hips and he’s sweating, though he’s too proud to slip off his sports coat. He’s been grim since the team arrived, and an afternoon spent baking in the sun and fighting with the FBI hasn’t improved his mood.

“I beg your pardon?” Reid stutters, still lost in his theory, which he _will not_ share with this sweaty, angry detective.

“What have you got?” Marquez says. “Your team has been here for hours. You must have something by now. We need to get going with this.”

 _There’s no rush…_ Reid’s mind whispers.

“The scene only tells us so much, despite how much of a scene there is.” Reid gestures to the line of graves. “Victimology will narrow our focus considerably, but it will take time to i.d. all of them.”

Marquez glares at him. “I can’t leave this scene today without something actionable. How am I supposed to tell the press we found fifty-four bodies in the desert but have no leads?”

“How you handle the media isn’t my concern, Detective. Complex investigations take time.”

“Don’t be naïve, Doctor,” Marquez snorts and steps into him a little more. “In a twenty-four-hour news cycle, this is big news. We have to seem like we’re on top of this or public opinion will crucify us.”

“We are on top of this.” Reid’s body tenses and he glares back as good as he’s getting. There’s a reason why he doesn’t handle LEO relations.

“Then gimme something more than ‘we’re looking into victims’ and ‘it’s complex’. You’re the damned FBI, for chrissakes. You’re supposed to be elite. Gimme a place to start.”

“You need a starting point? Okay…” Reid’s tone gets louder. “He’s a local. But if you’re a cop worthy of the title, you already knew that.”

“He’s not a local.”

“Of course he is,” Reid rolls his eyes. “This place isn’t easy to find, and he’s been coming here for years, maybe decades. He lives in or around Las Cruces. That’s obvious.”

Marquez looks uncomfortable and then wipes the sweat from his brow roughly.

“We’d… we’d have noticed if he was local and doing this for years. There would’ve been a pattern.”

“I didn’t say _they_ were local,” Reid gestures to the grave occupants. “Only he is. That’s why victimology is so important. We need to know who they were and what they meant to him.”

Marquez swallows and eases back on the aggression. “So, it’s a guy.”

Reid sighs. “Statistically, serial killers are overwhelmingly male and white. You know that, Detective. That’s an obvious observation as well. Considering the age of some of these graves, it might be another obvious observation to say he’s an _older_ man at this point.”

“How old?”

“I don’t know. Once again, that will be determined by the forensics we get back from the victims.”

“The victims? It could take weeks to get all the forensics and autopsies reports back! I need to figure out where the investigation moves in the next forty-eight hours!”

“I understand your frustration, Detective, but venting at me won’t make the answers materialize any faster.”

Marquez huffs loudly, like an offended bull getting ready to gore anything in his path. “So, you’re telling me you’ve tromped all over my crime scene, directed my people about like waiters, have an orgy of evidence in front of you… and after hours of ‘professional’ analysis, all you can tell me is that I’m looking for a white male of indeterminant age living within a hundred miles of a city with a population of over a hundred thousand. Is that accurate?”

“Maybe living within two hundred miles,” Reid adds petulantly. “Just to be safe.”

Marquez gives him the meanest smile he’s ever received. “Great. That’s helpful of you. Thank God we’re not paying the Bureau for this crap because that isn’t worth the price of diner coffee, Doctor. You haven’t given us anything we didn’t already have.”

“Nothing _yet_ ,” Reid mumbles, and watches as Marquez’s face slowly turns red. It’s troubling that he’s enjoying this antagonism so much. This job has changed him…

“Is there a problem here, Detective Marquez?”

Reid turns at the sound of Hotch’s voice and sees him striding towards them with a fierce scowl and not a trace of sweat despite the heat. Marquez turns to face him, switching his anger easily to another.

“Do _you_ have any useful insights I can start working on, Hotchner? All I got from this PhD cut-out is: white, male and local.”

“When we’ve analyzed the evidence and built a cursory victimology outline, we’ll share our insights with your department. Anything before that would be dangerous speculation and could set you back more than help you.”

“Awesome. That’s just fucking awesome of you,” Marquez sneers, but Hotch remains professionally neutral. Except for his scowl. “There’s a _monster_ in my community-”

“He’s been here for decades,” Reid interrupts, bringing both Marquez and Hotch’s gaze back to him. “He’s been walking among you for years. He won’t leave now just because you found his collection. He can’t. It’s his life’s work – he won’t leave them behind.”

Silence breaks uncomfortably between them and Reid feels itchy from the heat and the sweat trickling under his shirt.

“Your sense of urgency is a false one, Detective,” he finishes with quietly.

And somehow, that takes all the fight out of Marquez, if not the anger. He shrugs in disgust and tramps back the way he came, yelling for everyone to hear, “We don’t fucking need you.” The entire crime scene _stops_ for a handful of heartbeats, and then starts up again in unison like the good worker bees they are. This drama will just add spice to their stories.

Reid stares at Hotch, six feet away and watching Marquez stomp off. Then he turns back to the last grave, and his mind falls into his terrible idea again like Marquez never happened. After all this time, he can compartmentalize that way.

“I shouldn’t have provoked him like that,” Reid murmurs. “Sorry.”

Hotch makes a non-committal ‘um-hmm’ sound but doesn’t say anything more. Eventually, he shuffles next to Reid at the foot of the grave. Reid can feel his heat as easily as his own.

“You think he’s still here,” Hotch murmurs, and somehow suggests it is a question.

“Maybe closer than we think,” he sighs back.

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure yet.” Reid closes his eyes for a moment and lets the loneliness in his mind consume him. “I have a terrible theory…”

Hotch waits on him. When Reid opens his eyes again and glances at him, Hotch’s expression is one of expectation. Reid warms at the unspoken patience, and then shrinks when he has to disappoint it.

“It’s not… I could just be reading something into this that isn’t there.”

“Okay,” Hotch nods. If he’s upset, he doesn’t show it. “You called this his ‘collection’…”

“A collection in the sense that he’s kept them together. And I think we might find evidence that he’s come back to revisit them. Opened them up to see how they’re doing. He’s not a typical collector – he hasn’t depersonalized them. I think he’s very connected to them. This is _emotional._ I mean… can’t you feel that?”

Reid glances at Hotch and finds undiluted wonder on his face. It’s not what he expects when describing a killer’s modus operandi.

“These are his little hellflowers,” he chokes out, not meaning to.

“Hellflowers?”

“ _In this world, we walk on the roof of hell gazing at flowers._ ”

Hotch lifts his eyebrows.

“It’s a haiku by Kobayashi Issa. He lost everyone he loved throughout a lifetime of tragedy. It’s all I’ve been thinking about since I saw them.” Reid gestures vaguely to the line of graves.

“You believe he loves them,” Hotch says carefully and lowly, so as not to be overheard.

“I think this is as close as he can come to love, yes.” Reid takes a humid breath and lets it out slowly, trying not to feel his thoughts too much. “I think… he doesn’t understand love, but he wants to. He’s been trying for so long. But his inability to connect makes him invisible. No one notices him. That’s why he never left – there’s no need. No one knows he’s here.”

He suddenly shudders hard, thinking about his quiet apartment, thinking on Hotch’s unfulfilling relationship with silence. He thinks about how he’s never openly loved someone.

“It’s just…” It comes out shaky, so he tries again. “This feels so _lonely._ I know it’s crazy to think this standing in front of fifty-four people who suffered and died horribly, but… I feel sorry for this guy…”

Then Hotch’s hand is wrapped around his elbow and Reid’s focus narrows to that connection like they’re transmitting electricity between them. Hotch hasn’t touched him in over a year. Reid glances at him and finds his professionalism warring with something _too_ intense and barely in his control.

“Are you okay?” Hotch murmurs.

“No, I don’t think I am,” Reid answers immediately and calmly.

“What can I do?” The care in his soft rumble quietly tears Reid apart.

“Nothing. I think, maybe… my time walking over these kinds of roofs might be coming to an end. That’s all.”

Hotch’s fingers squeeze him unmercifully, and when Reid looks at him, he’s blinking a little too much.

“Go back to the hotel,” he mumbles. “Get some rest.”

Reid shakes his head. “There’s some much to be done-”

“Not by us. Our work can’t begin until we have victim i.d.s and a preliminary cause of death. There’s time for you to get out of this heat and recharge a little.” Hotch holds his stare a little longer. “If you don’t go, I’ll make J.J. force you. She won’t take no for an answer, you know that.”

Reid feels his mouth twitch. That’s the most he can manage. Then he nods and ducks his eyes. “Text me with updates, no matter how trivial.”

“I will.” Hotch’s hand slips away and the electricity disappears with it.

Then Reid concentrates on the hard-packed dust pluming around his feet as he walks back across the ridge of hell.

\----- 

A few days later, Reid is in the over-air conditioned conference room of the Las Cruces homicide squad staring at crime scene photos, preliminary medical findings, and an impressive set of victim bios courtesy of Garcia. Thank God for Garcia. Somehow, she seems to tap into Reid’s emotional hangover about this case, and it drives her to work three times as fast to put names to all the lost faces. The disturbing discovery is that _none_ of the victims knew each other. Some were local, some were university students, some were tourists. There isn’t a single unifying characteristic to link them together other than they are un-linkable. Considering that, Reid feels it’s safe to assume that they have no crossover with their killer either, which makes the personal vibe he got off the crime scene even more inscrutable. But he knows he’s right somehow and decides to stay in that frigid conference room until he figures it out.

Marquez has been doing flybys every few hours to prod or complain. It’s annoying how petulant he’s being, even though Reid has over a decade of experience ignoring pissy LEOs. The urgency Marquez has been pushing since they arrived hasn’t gone away, and Reid can’t wrap his head around that because the one thing he feels certain about is that there _isn’t_ any urgency in this case. The best guess on the part of the coroner is that the burials are spaced one to two years apart, and that the freshest grave is nine months old. So, their guy is very regimented in his schedule and isn’t due to kill again any time soon. Assuming he kills again. And it is both a certainty and a question: a certainty because he’s been doing it for decades, and a question because he might be too old to keep going.

And that’s where Reid finds himself, staring at the crime scene photos of the last grave site, and wondering…

“What is it? What do you see?”

The whisper is so close he should jump, but the voice soothes him, and he just twitches that he didn’t hear Hotch sneak up on him. Better it be Hotch than almost anyone else. Reid sighs and takes a step back from the board where the victim photos and files are tacked up. He _knows_ he’s right, but he needs to bounce the theory off someone. It’ll be tough to convince almost everyone about it, and he needs to hear that he’s not crazy. Or projecting.

“I said the killer was close.”

“You did,” Hotch nods.

“Well… I think he’s here.” Reid’s hands make expansive gestures to the victim board.

“You mean… he’s one of the dead?”

Reid strides up and jabs at the photo of the old man and the boy – the last kill. 

“Wilber Strickland. Seventy-two-years old. Las Cruces native. Lifelong farm hand; worked all over the area and almost always for cash. Never married, no family, no friends that anyone could recall. According to the last census, he lived on a plot of land bought by his parents in 1952, and it’s ten miles from the grave site. Never finished high school, never had a passport – there’s nothing to suggest he ever travelled outside the Las Cruces area his whole life. His mother died when he was eight, his father died when he was seventeen. He’s been alone ever since.”

Reid faces Hotch, who’s still patiently waiting on him.

“He’s isolated, under-educated, physically strong even as an older man. He knows the area but has no connections anywhere within the community, possibly due to the trauma of losing his only emotional supports at crucial points in his youth.”

“Okay…” Hotch sounds doubtful.

“Don’t you see? He never learned to _adapt_. He lost the only people who meant anything to him before he was ready to be independent, and he couldn’t negotiate the things he didn’t understand. He never had a bank account, never applied for credit or a loan. His farmhouse wasn’t even on the local grid – he powered everything by a gas-powered generator and a woodburning stove. By modern standards, he was invisible, and I think that terrified him.” 

Reid takes a breath. This theory is terrifying - _he_ is terrified by it, personally. “So, even though he couldn’t adapt, he wanted to. He tried. He bound strangers together and tried to figure out how they connected.”

Hotch stands quietly and stares, not _at_ him, but in his direction while going inward to dissect what he’s heard. Reid’s actively worried that Hotch won’t understand this, and then he silently panics that he understands it so clearly. The M.O. is subtle, deeply personal, and yet Reid feels it screaming at him now. What does that _mean?_ He’s been accused of being oversensitive at times, but this is something else, something new. Sympathy, or empathy maybe. Either way it’s messy, unprofessional, and problematic. And with the sliver of his brain that isn’t worrying that thought over, he’s horrified that Hotch might lose confidence in his abilities. That would be unbearable now, with the way he craves Hotch’s regard. That’s all he has left from Hotch, really… 

Reid waits for Hotch to come back, and it takes some time.

“The person you’re describing isn’t socially adept enough to kidnap over fifty people cleanly,” Hotch says.

“The coroner noted that most of the bodies had some blunt force trauma to their skulls. He probably just waited until they were alone and knocked them out. Not enough to kill them, but it kept them quiet until he got them home where he had more control. Pretty simple, really. No finesse required.”

“All right, I’d buy that. But why would he bury himself alive? Why would he put himself through that? Is it remorse?”

Reid sighs deeply and watches the photos on the whiteboard for a long time in silence. 

“My theory is… well… I think he watched his parents die and it terrified him. He didn’t understand it or the emotions it provoked. Perhaps he was mentally or emotionally delayed… Then he was alone and began to spiral out nightmare scenarios about being alone in death as well. It’s all speculation, but I imagine he thought if two strangers met and connected just before their death, they wouldn’t pass on alone. I think he saw connecting with a stranger as his only option, given that he seemed incapable of making associations naturally.”

“But to commit suicide after this long, Reid-”

Reid tapped his finger on the boy curled in Strickland’s arms in the crime scene photo. “Look at the photo, Hotch. This is Austin Vargas. He lived on the other side of Las Cruces in a middle-class suburb. He didn’t know Strickland – their paths never would’ve crossed. But _look_ at the way they’re holding each other. You’d think they were family. Look at the way he’s holding Austin’s head. It’s gentle, like he’s priceless.”

Reid glances back at Hotch, hoping he doesn’t find disgust there. Because Strickland’s loneliness is visceral to Reid, like he’s living it out with him, and Reid doesn’t want Hotch to know how deeply lonely he’s become since his heart woke up.

“I think Strickland finally figured out how to connect. Or he lost his fear of death. Either way, he decided it was time to join his hellflowers. That’s all he wanted: not to be alone anymore.”

“And burying himself?”

Reid shrugs. “The grave was messy compared to the others. The ground was loose and uneven. He could’ve rigged the soil he dug up to fall back into the grave and triggered it from within the coffin. There was enough that its weight would’ve prevented their escape even if the lid wasn’t nailed shut.”

Everything drains out of Hotch’s features after that. He looks stuck between belief and horror at that acceptance. But Reid breathes a sigh of relief at the belief part. It shouldn’t be a relief. It shouldn’t feel good that Hotch still has faith in him.

“There won’t be anymore murders. This case is done.”

“No one will believe it,” Hotch whispers, still riveted to Strickland’s death photo. “Not without proof. It’s just too… unspeakable.”

“I know,” Reid slouches. At least Hotch hadn’t told him he was nuts. “But I’m sure about this, Hotch. As sure as I’ve ever been about a case.”

Hotch’s eyes flick away from the whiteboard and zero in on Reid. There’s a moment of quiet, indeterminant focus from him, and then his chin dips in the smallest of acceptances. And Reid experiences the strangest combination of happiness and disgust in a single moment. Hotch’s belief in him fills him to bursting, but the fact that he came up with this theory at all is because Reid _empathizes_ so dangerously with Strickland. Strickland _makes sense_ to him, and that realization alone makes him want to walk away from the life he’s built without looking back.

“Perhaps we will get some physical evidence from Strickland’s property…” Hotch mumbles.

“Las Cruces CSI is there now at my suggestion,” Reid huffs and turns away, back to the board of the dead. “But he’s been dead for nine months. DNA, hair and fiber, even blood would be hard to collect now. If it’s there to begin with. There’s no digital trail to follow, no witnesses… Even if we find the supplies he used to build the coffins, it’s circumstantial at best. Just pine boards and nails…”

Hotch is silent for a long time and Reid glances back at him, wondering what he’ll come up with. Because Reid doesn’t have a next step in mind. Hotch pinches a finger across his lips as he scowls and thinks.

“Marquez will never accept this.”

“I know,” Reid grumbles, thinking about the detective’s increasing hostility over the past few days. “But how do we prove an _absence_ of threat? We can wait out the killer’s timeline and when another body doesn’t drop… is that enough?”

“It won’t be. Not for him. Marquez sees this case as a personal affront. He needs the killer to be larger than life – a monster. A sad loner who lived and died without notice will not serve him. And then there’s the media to consider. They’ll want motivations and evidence laid out, and they won’t get it. There’s no closure here. The BAU won’t be facing the backlash on that – Las Cruces Homicide will.” Hotch lets out a loud and uncharacteristic sigh. “Marquez will fight us on this because he’ll never understand it.”

_And I do. I understand it too much. I’m scared of that, Aaron. What’s happening to me?_

“But… you believe it,” Reid asks instead.

Hotch drops his hands and straightens, giving Reid his full attention. “I do. We’ll wait to see what forensics we can get from Strickland’s place, but as far as the Bureau is concerned, I consider Strickland to be our most likely suspect, and, without further evidence that leads us away from him, there’s little more we can offer here. Our suspect is dead.”

Reid waits and discovers he’s holding his breath for some reason.

“Why do you believe me?” he murmurs, terrified of the answer. “This is all just conjecture on my part. You’d close this case without _any_ corroborating evidence?”

“I trust you,” Hotch says without hesitation and without breaking his stare. “I trust your instincts as I would my own.”

Reid’s stomach twists in him and heat rises in his cheeks. It’s possibly the worst moment to feel stimulated by his capability kink. “That’s personal bias.”

“No. It’s understanding of your resources and limitations based on experience,” Hotch rebuts firmly. “And it’s also the realization that as outlandish as your theory seems on the surface, it fits the evidence at hand and it _makes sense._ There are no glaring inconsistencies in it, no untended threads. The fact that it can only be seen with an empathetic view of the suspect doesn’t make it improbable. Only uncomfortable. Searching for a drooling maniac who doesn’t exist might make everyone feel better about this – like we’re all doing our jobs – but the FBI is not in the business of making people feel better. I’ll take an uncomfortable, logical theory over guilt masquerading as productivity any day.”

Hotch holds Reid’s gaze for another moment. “It has nothing to do with anything between us, Reid.”

 _Anything between us…_ What did THAT mean?

“I…” Reid shakes his head. There’s a dull ache blossoming behind his eyes and he doesn’t know if it’s psychological or physical. This case has felt as if he’s speeding down a dead-end road; its abrupt end is within sight now and all he can focus on is the pressure to choose a new direction. “I’m not comfortable with how I got here.”

Suddenly, Hotch is much closer than he was before, but Reid has no memory of him moving. “Elaborate, please,” he says in a quiet way, just between them.

“I’m not… I’m not okay _feeling_ my way through the evidence. I am restless at the absence of proof. And I’m uncomfortable that you’d just take my word on it. If I were an outsider looking in at our work on this case, I would be righteously skeptical of our conclusions.”

What he doesn’t say is: _I don’t want to understand Strickland’s motives so well. I don’t want to look over the scant leavings of his life and become terrified about my own. I’m blurring here, becoming less distinct… I think I need to walk away from this – from you – before I become an afterimage of who I thought I was._

There’s an awkward silence, and then Hotch’s hand is on his elbow again like it was at the crime scene, grounding him and making him spark simultaneously.

“Nevertheless, this is the conclusion we’ve drawn,” Hotch murmurs. “I can see you’re upset. Did you want me to refute you?”

“I don’t want…” Reid pulls himself out of Hotch’s grasp. “I wasn’t expecting anything from you. Maybe I was just hoping… for things to make more sense than this.”

He uses the whiteboard as an excuse not to look at Hotch’s expression. He’s not sure he’s entirely talking about the case anymore, and that’s even less appropriate than his unsuitable theory.

“Whether you like it or not, what you’ve pieced together makes sense, Reid. The journey may not please you, but… this is good work.”

Reid turns on him in a flash, angry at himself and where he finds himself in his life. And he focuses that anger towards the closest target. 

“Don’t do that. Don’t compliment me as if vivid, blood-soaked daydreaming were on the same intellectual level as psychological analysis and evidentiary certainty. What I’ve done here is no better than bringing in a local psychic to get ‘a vibe’ off the evidence bags.”

Hotch blinks and takes a half-step back, shocked. “Reid-”

_Don’t you see what this has done to me?_

“You hired me for _my mind_. The way I’ve trained it and structured it according to facts and logic. I will _not_ become some spooky cliché of an investigator. I will not read the tea leaves of death and make pronouncements like a carnival fortune teller. Feelings aren’t evidence, and I never used to have a problem with that because I was never overly burdened by the former. But now I am. And you _know_ this.”

He glares at Hotch and feels an uncertain swell of _something_ crest inside his chest. Maybe it’s the heartbreak Emily told him he needs. 

“And you also know how I crave your good opinion. So, don’t stand there and pat me on the head for this effort when you know it’s less than what I’m capable of, and don’t do it because you’re afraid if you don’t, I’ll abandon you in your relationship of silence.”

The last part rockets out of him without thought, and he staggers back from the force of it. Hotch’s eyebrows rise and his stare gets confused and owlish. Then Reid can’t swallow or breathe well because he’s revealed too much and has no idea how to reel it back in.

“I mean…” he stutters, gut churning at the shocked expression Hotch is wearing. Helpfully or not, his head pings again and he reaches up to worry the pain into his skin with his fingers. “Sorry… I… sorry.”

Hotch clears his throat strangely. “I’ve never asked…”

He abruptly stops, and when he starts again his tone has changed to something distant and professional.

“If you’re having doubts about the job-”

“That’s right. You’ve never asked me for anything,” Reid interrupts with too much heat. His eyes find Hotch again, and the shock is still there, though muted. Then Reid panics, and his guts heave as his head pounds out a mighty throb. He’s got to get out of that room or he’s going to be sick. Humiliation buries him as he realizes he’s going to flee Hotch’s presence like he did when this all started; he’s no better off than he was over a year ago.

“Reid-” 

Hotch steps towards him, and Reid does this awkward thing where he ducks his eyes to the floor and tries to move around him. He can’t make it one way, so he stops and stomps in the opposite direction, almost cringing to avoid brushing Hotch as he passes him out into the squad room. Hotch calls his name again, but Reid walks swiftly leaving him behind and he knows Hotch won’t follow him, causing a scene. Heat is scorching across his face as he concentrates on his shoes and refuses to think how childish this reaction is. _Just a fucking infant with the personal stuff…_ Suddenly, a hand catches his arm.

“Hey Reid, what’s going on?”

He glances up and finds Emily’s worried expression, but instead of the comfort he usually finds in it, he responds with irritation.

“Lemme go.”

“Why? Hotch is calling you. Didn’t you hear him?”

He shrugs her hand off. “Leave me alone. Just… everyone leave me alone!”

She quickly blocks his escape but doesn’t touch him. “Hey now. I know this case is a hard one for you – I’ve seen it. Tell me what’s going on. Let me help.”

“You’ve helped enough already,” he hisses back, and when she cocks a confused eyebrow at him, he makes a vague gesture over his shoulder in the direction of Hotch. Emily’s brows lower again.

“Did you… say something to him?” she murmurs, and Reid’s irritation flames into full-blown anger.

“No, I didn’t. I’m not _that_ unprofessional,” he snaps, but thinks maybe he is. “You think you’re helping, Hotch thinks he’s helping… but I’ve still gotta make the hard decisions on my own. _I’m_ the one looking at this case and seeing the facts no one wants to accept. _I’m_ the one who has to live with how I got there. And _I’m_ the one who has to keep going – with that knowledge in my head that makes _no one happy_ – and survive it. On my own. Until the next case, when I’m miraculously supposed to be ready to do it all over again!”

He raises his voice and catches the attention of the cops in the squad room. Good. He hopes Marquez hears this too. It’s not as if he enjoys the intimate knowledge he has of a killer, or the assurance that this case will never have any real closure. But there’s something else that’s fueling his vibrating hysteria. He feels truly alone in this. It’s a sensation that triggers the cloying fear of his childhood – being solitary and misunderstood forever. Over the years he managed to divorce the emotional panic from his isolation and learned to exist there. But now it’s back and he’s helpless in its irrational grip like a child once again.

_I didn’t need anyone. I packed away that desperation. But now… what if I’m never seen by anyone? No one wants to really see me…_

Strickland’s semi-decomposed body flashes into his mind, curled around his final victim in a tender embrace. Strickland had to kill to get what he was looking for; Reid doesn’t want to think about what he’d do in order to stop this suffocating fear. But one thought has crystalized on him in this moment: he’s not going to find it if he stays where he is.

“There’s no point to this,” he mutters as Emily blinks at him in shock, much like Hotch did. “There’s no point to any of this… I’ve lost my context.”

“Spence, it’s just this case,” she says quietly, looking worried.

“No, it’s not, Emily. It’s me. I’ve changed.”

He steps around her and leaves her behind, not waiting for her reaction or anyone else’s. He keeps going until he reaches the main entry, then out into the street. He keeps walking aimlessly until the ache in his clenched fists and his throbbing head tell him to stop.


	5. Flare-up

Emily waits patiently as Hotch gathers the Mesa Gravedigger case detectives and explains their findings. She waits as Marquez throws a tantrum about it and promises he’ll crucify the BAU openly in the media when the next Gravedigger victim is discovered. He’s not gonna let this go – it’s working him like a vendetta. But… she files that on the huge pile labelled ‘not Emily’s problem’. She folds her arms and hides her irritation as Hotch stares down the furious detective and advises him against that in his most placid and frightening tone. Then she calmly packs up her materials and goes back to the motel where she quietly waits to attack Hotch when he strolls through the lobby. She catches him at the elevator bank and lets it out without finesse.

“What have you done to Reid?”

Hotch turns, eyebrows raised, and faces her accusation in her aggressive stance and folded arms.

“I haven’t done anything to him,” he responds softly.

“C’mon, Aaron. He’s in love with you, and now he’s openly relating to isolated serial killers. Anyone can see he’s in the middle of a crisis.”

Hotch blinks and then cups her elbow pulling her away from the elevator to a discreet seating area at the far end of the lobby. They both sit, but Emily doesn’t let up on her determination to get answers from him.

“One fact isn’t related to the other,” Hotch sighs eventually. Emily dismisses that with a snort.

“Aaron, this guy was so disconnected from his feelings that he didn’t recognize them when he fell for someone. And now he’s just solved a case by climbing into a dead unsub’s head and channeling his loneliness. Nothing else – no statistical analysis or maps or crazy Fibonacci series theories. A year ago, he wouldn’t have done that.” She looks Hotch squarely in the eye. “One fact is _inextricably linked_ to the other.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say, Prentiss. It’s not as if Reid doesn’t have feelings. Today wasn’t the first meltdown he’s had…”

“He has feelings,” she sighs. “But he’s always kept them to himself. He tackles the work strategically, not emotionally. This Gravedigger business… he _relates_ to Strickland, Hotch. He’s never done that before. He’s never come close to doing it.”

“I know.” Hotch scowls and his gaze gets distant.

“We’re gonna lose him.”

Hotch’s focus comes back to her instantly, and it is ferocious, which surprises her a little.

“If he has a single fiber of self-preservation in him, he’ll quit before he becomes a full-blown headcase,” Emily murmurs, and Hotch’s expression darkens.

“It’s one case,” he growls back.

“It _isn’t_ , Aaron,” she leans in urgently. “You talked to him – couldn’t you see how terrified he was? He’s alone in his head. He has no foundation to ground him, to hold him steady when he stretches too far. And that’s been by his design because he’s emotionally slept-walked his way through life. But now he’s awake and petrified by the onslaught of what he’s been ignoring for decades.” 

She points at Hotch. “ _You_ woke him up. Maybe you don’t feel that way about him, but it doesn’t matter at this point. You know he’s still in love with you, right? Whatever you’ve been doing this past year, it hasn’t changed that. He’s Vesuvius and we’re Pompeii; he’s gonna blow and bury us all. That’s what today was about, and you have to take your share of the responsibility for it.”

Hotch shrinks a little; it’s a micro-adjustment, but it’s noticeable to Emily. She wonders if he’s been genuinely clueless about Reid all this time. Just being there for him as a friend and not understanding the havoc he’s caused.

“I know… his feelings haven’t changed,” he says quietly, eyes averted. “I’ve been avoiding that.”

Emily stares at him as he sinks into one of his patented silences. Then she gently prods him, because she won’t let him escape that easily. “Why have you been avoiding it?”

He turns back to face her, and he seems tired. “Because I know the best way for him to get past this is for one of us to leave. And I’m selfish about my job.” He sighs and shrugs. “ _And_ I don’t want him to leave.”

“But Aaron… that’s so unhealthy. For him and for you.”

“I know that.” His eyes drift away to the people walking through the lobby, unfocused and disinterested. “He means a lot to me though.” 

Emily sits back and watches Hotch not-really people watching. _This is a mess_ , she thinks, and wants nothing to do with it. But then…

“If he means that much, help him, Aaron.” She waits for his eyes to find her again. “Even if you have to let him go. Help him. Just _do_ something. Don’t let this fester.”

Hotch straightens where he sits and his professional mask slides back into place. He smooths the line of his jacket absently with his hand and mumbles, “Yes”, without indicating what he’s agreed to do. Then he abruptly stands.

“I’m going to pack. You should do the same. Garcia is scrambling the jet for us this evening.”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Emily huffs, caught off guard by the sudden change in topics. “When do we leave?”

“Garcia will text us all with details.” Hotch begins to walk away.

“Hotch,” she stands and calls after him, his name echoing off the marble of the lobby. She waits for him to look back, and when he does, he seems legitimately curious about her, as if he considered their conversation complete. She takes a breath and mutters, _the hell with it_ , inside her head.

“If you… care about him,” she tries not to cringe as she says it. “Whatever ‘care’ means for you… just tell him, okay? He needs to know, and you need to be unambiguous about it. Okay?”

She waits for him to agree, but he just blinks once, like a stutter, and turns to walk back to the elevators.

\---- 

The flight back from New Mexico is long enough that Reid is unsurprised when the team quietly moves away from his seat, and Hotch slides into the chair opposite him. He expects this, though he’s pissed off that there seems to be an unspoken agreement from the rest of the team that Hotch do this _now_ and in plain view. Reid’s eyes resentfully meet Hotch’s, but Hotch doesn’t say a thing. He just waits with a strained look on his face as if he’d prefer to scream in the cabin instead.

“What?” Reid breaks the staring contest. Hotch just arches an eyebrow at him, and Reid sighs. “If you want me to say I’m sorry… well, I’m sorry for how I acted, but not sorry about what I said.”

“Okay,” Hotch murmurs and continues staring. Perhaps an apology isn’t what he’s looking for. Reid considers what Hotch the Unit Chief would do here, and he tries to slip into his skin for a moment.

“I don’t think this is the place for this discussion,” he mumbles.

“I don’t think it’s wise to put it off, Reid.”

Reid leans forward and hisses. “Everyone is watching.”

“They aren’t. Look.”

Reid glances around the cabin and the rest of the team is facing away from them. Morgan is under headphones, as always. Rossi and J.J. appear to be sleeping, and Emily is steadfastly ignoring what’s happening at the front of the cabin, though her body is a tense line in her seat. So, yeah, everyone is obviously in on this plan.

Reid turns to face Hotch and lets out an irritated huff. “Okay, fine. Say what you’re going to say then.”

Hotch waits a moment longer, sadness pulling at his features before he clears it away. “You’re struggling right now.”

Reid rolls his eyes in a way Hotch doesn’t deserve. He can’t help himself.

“It seems…” Hotch falters, looking awkward for the first time. It catches Reid’s focus and dims his petulance. “Perhaps…”

Hotch stops again and his silence is like a neon sign making his doubt light up the jet in unsettling flashes. He shuffles his suit jacket across his shoulders and then seems to find a hidden pocket of composure.

“Remember when we talked about… giving everything to this job?” he continues quietly, his eyes flicking back up to Reid’s again. 

“I remember,” Reid mumbles, almost lost in the white noise of the cabin. “You said you had and that I shouldn’t.” Reid swallows hard, guts suddenly knotted so tight he curls his back to ease the tension. “Are you telling me I should quit?”

The sentence seems to physically alarm Hotch. His eyes blink as if the words just slapped him. “I… I, uh… I want to see you happy, Reid. Right now, it seems… the job doesn’t make you happy. That’s what I’m saying.”

That doesn’t seem to be what Hotch is saying at all. Or it’s only a portion of what he’s saying. Reid’s knots flare into an acidic wave of nausea. _Heartbreak. This must be what it feels like…_

“I don’t think happiness has ever been my prime motivation in life,” Reid chokes.

“Are you okay with that?” Hotch asks softly, his eyebrows rising in confusion, which confuses Reid in turn. “Have you ever tried making choices based on what might content you the most?”

Reid blinks rapidly, bile threatening in his throat. _No, I haven’t. I don’t even think I’d know how to do it._ “That’s selfish. Being an adult means making sacrifices.”

“Denying happiness is certainly a sacrifice, yes,” Hotch intones gravely, looking like he understands that statement inside and out. “But maybe you’ve given up enough, Reid. Maybe… it’s time for you to be a little selfish now.”

“What… what are you saying?” Reid’s finding it hard to breathe. “Are you… firing me? Pushing me out?”

Hotch shakes his head vehemently. “Of course not. I never would. Your work has always been exemplary, even on cases like this one when you doubt your conclusions and abilities.” Hotch watches Reid as if every inch of him is in pain. He laces his fingers together and leans his elbows hard into his knees. “You have almost limitless intellectual potential, Spencer. That gives you a unique type of freedom that the rest of us don’t have. You could do anything. You don’t have to stay in the Unit, or the Bureau for that matter, if the consequences are causing you too much harm.”

“Do you want me to leave?” It comes out before he can stop it, and Hotch looks like he’s just been told he has five minutes to live.

“No,” he whispers as his skin turns white at the knuckles. He opens his mouth, and thinks better of it, swallowing whatever is there back inside. “But this isn’t about me. Maybe now is a good time for you to take a well-deserved break. You have a lot of vacation time accrued…”

“A break to do what?” Reid frowns and asks hotly. Hotch gives him a stare that holds him like cement.

“To imagine your future. To see other possibilities. To gain perspective on your present, and whether it’s what you want.” Hotch breathes in sharply. “Just take time for yourself for once. Don’t work on a paper or consult for a friend in academia. Don’t call us to see what we’re up to. _Think_ about yourself. Make some personal decisions – not react to ones forced upon you.”

Hotch’s eyes flick around as if he’s guilty, then he settles himself again, finally pulling on a successfully professional expression. “If you decide the BAU is still what you want, your job will be waiting for you. If you decide you want to transfer to another team or department, that’s fine too. Or if you decide to try something altogether different, that’s okay as well. There are no bad choices here, Reid.”

Reid feels like he’s swallowed the sun and it’s burning its way down into the guts of him. “This… this hurts,” he chokes. “Like you’re throwing me away.”

Hotch’s hand flashes out and grips Reid tight enough to bruise.

“I’m not,” he whispers as emphatically as he can, his mouth settling into a tight, angry line. 

He continues crushing Reid’s fingers in his grasp but doesn’t say anything else. Eventually, Reid pulls his hand free and curls back into his seat, not checking to see if the others listened in, or how Hotch reacts to the retreat. He doesn’t acknowledge Hotch again until the jet lands, and then he goes home, fills out the time off request, and emails it to Hotch. Within thirty minutes the email comes back: REQUEST APPROVED, and nothing else.

Reid turns off his laptop and his phone, and hides under the blankets in his bedroom, preparing to be alone, unoccupied and unseen for the foreseeable future.


	6. Remission

In the first week of his forced vacation, Reid goes a little nuts. Nothing too dramatic – just a moderate, polite sort of panicked. He tries to do what Hotch advised – not focus on anything but himself – but the voice of doubt in his head gets too loud to handle. After cleaning and rearranging his apartment, taking care of the ‘life maintenance’ he’d let slip during his busier moments, and after rereading every book he owns, he breaks down and calls Emily on the sly.

“Dude, it hasn’t even been a full week yet,” she mumbles warmly into the phone. “You can’t be alone with yourself that long?”

“I’m bored,” he whines back. Emily laughs.

“And you called _me?_ You must be desperate.”

“You’re not boring.”

“I stayed at the office so late last night that I woke up in a puddle of my own drool on my desk, Reid. You’re right: I have a positively scintillating life.”

She keeps laughing for a while and then calms down. “Have you thought about taking a trip? Maybe go somewhere you’ve never been before. Or go see your mom.”

Reid sighs. “Seeing Mom isn’t exactly relaxing. And Hotch pointed out that I should do more personal things. Focus less on responsibilities, ya know? Mom is definitely a responsibility.”

Emily waits before answering. In the background, he can hear the buzz of the bullpen, and that fills him with a soft tugging at the center of his chest.

“Have you talked to him?” she murmurs.

“He… uh… I’m not supposed to check in with work,” he stammers back, face getting hot as he remembers the last look on Hotch’s face and the tight grip of his hand.

“But you called me,” Emily deadpans. “Listen, I didn’t mean have you called him to ask how work is going. I meant, have you called him to _talk_? Like guy friends do, or because he’s the most important person in your life, or whatever the hell it is between you two.”

Reid slouches back in his seat and feels a frown descend across his features. “He wants me to figure out what I want on my own. That’s the purpose of this whole exercise.” He tries not to feel too bitter as he says it.

“Yep, he sure does,” Emily responds blithely. “But do you really think you’ll make any lasting plans without first resolving your feelings for him? I know you two are politely dancing around this, but enough is enough. Your embarrassment is overrated at this point. Time to shit or get off the pot, Reid.”

“You’re always so politic, Em.” Reid rolls his eyes even though she can’t see it. His stomach dips as he considers her point. Emily is so often right about these things.

“I swear to God, getting you two talking is like pulling teeth…”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I confronted Hotch after your little blowout in Las Cruces,” she sighs. “I told him to talk to you – that you needed him in whatever capacity you were comfortable with. I thought I made an impact on him, but maybe…”

Reid begins hyperventilating. “You told him I’m _still in love with him?_ ”

“Of course not, dumbass. Not specifically. Not really.” She pauses. “It’s sorta obvious. He didn’t need to be told.”

“Oh, _fuck._ ”

“Relax, Spencer. It’s not like this is news to him. You told him you loved him ages ago.”

“I told him I was in love with him and I didn’t want to be,” Reid snaps back. “Now he knows that I haven’t gotten past it, and that just makes me pitiable. No wonder why he’s been treating me like broken pottery! It’s surprising that he hasn’t started interviewing agents to replace me yet…”

“Holy hell, you are melodramatic.” Emily takes a breath that he can hear over the phone. “No one’s getting replaced. You’re Dr. Spencer Fucking Reid. Do you honestly believe the Bureau has anyone who could _possibly_ fill your shoes? Do you think they’d even know where to find that person if they existed? And, more importantly, do you really think Hotch doesn’t want you on the team?”

Reid clamps his mouth shut and begins blinking too much.

“He cares about you, man,” she goes on when he doesn’t. “I think, in his uniquely constipated way, he thought he was helping by forcing you to take time off. He wants you to consider what you want, and to figure out a plan to get it, that’s all. So much of what we do in our jobs is reactive. It can seep into your whole damned life if you aren’t careful. Trust me – I’m a prime example. And so is Hotch.”

Emily lets out a long sigh. “You’re not happy, Spencer, and you deserve to be. It’s time to figure out how to make yourself happy.”

He gives their conversation some thought after it’s over, and elects to stop going slightly nuts. It’s a conscious decision, and he surprises himself when his mind cooperates fully with his choice. He realizes that he’s spent a week in a holding pattern, waiting to return to the addictive and unsatisfying habits of work and Hotch’s presence, and both the waiting and the anticipation aren’t very rewarding. Emily’s right: he’s not happy and the prospect of returning to the life he understands doesn’t make him happy either. The only way to break the circuit of unhappiness is to step out of it and see what else is out there.

He gets in his car and goes on a road trip through New England for his birthday, simply because he’s never done it before, and because Emily always said the fall leaves in the north-east are the best anywhere in the country. And she isn’t wrong. He also discovers that New Englanders take Halloween as seriously as he does, and he finds himself having an amazing time even with the awkward conversations he’s forced to have with strangers, and his mild aversion to roadside motels. He returns ten days later, more relaxed than he’s been in years, and with an impressive collection of local ghost stories, a bunch of tacky tourist memorabilia he loves, and having sampled pumpkin pies in various towns across four states. 

The other thing he takes away from his trip is that he _can_ be happy on his own. So often his isolation seems like a punishment, but he’s reminded of how he’s adapted to it, and how he can find delight in it when he tries. His life isn’t like Strickland’s at all; it isn’t without hope. He has friends, interests, options open to him – and it’s like releasing a breath he’s been holding for too long when he sees this for himself. But perhaps the darkness that overtook him in New Mexico was just the job working him; perhaps it will return if he dives back in again. He isn’t certain. He loves the work, but he’s not prepared to lose himself in a case the way he lost himself in Las Cruces. He knows that much.

By week three, he’s eased into a calmness that’s almost alien. But he likes it. Sleeping in, staying up late to work on whatever project catches his interest, walking through his neighborhood in the brisk November wind, getting to know the best places to get coffee, making time to visit his local library or to go to the movies and lose himself in the dark fictions onscreen… He still has the itch to call the office, to know what everyone is working on. And he still has a driving compulsion – an ache – to see Hotch, which he pushes away with effort. He realizes that how he feels for Hotch is a separate problem, but one which is also inextricably linked to his work at the BAU. If he can’t get past his feelings, it may not matter how he feels about the job; he’ll have to leave. He knows Hotch never will.

But perhaps the most important moment of his vacation happens when he’s at the Smithsonian visiting the dinosaurs. It’s the middle of the day and he can’t figure out why it’s so busy, then he realizes that it’s Saturday, and suddenly the herd of loud, overexcited children with their harried, long-suffering minders falls into context for him. He smiles to himself that he forgot what day it is. How long has it been since that’s happened? He’s staring up at a stately brontosaurus skeleton, considering the near impossibility of its locomotion and grazing needs, when he hears his name in the crowd. He looks about, wondering how many Spencers there are around him, when his name is called out again, this time high and excited. Then people are jostling, and parents are huffing, and suddenly Jack Hotchner bursts clear of the masses and runs full tilt into Spencer’s leg.

“Spencer!” Jack grins as he attaches himself to Reid like a leech. Reid gets a shiver of excitement and then worry as he glances around the crowd.

“Jack! Where did you come from? Where’s your dad?”

“I saw you over here starin’ at the brontosaurus. I knew it was you! You’re tall and long like he is, but he makes you look like a mouse. So funny…”

“Huh,” Reid chuckles, still looking around for Hotch or Jessica. “Well, I doubt brontosauruses wore sweaters, so that’s one way to tell us apart.”

“And you still have skin!” Jack enthuses.

“Yes, thank goodness.” Reid makes a face and then ruffles Jack’s blonde locks as he laughs. Jack’s always made things easy for Reid. “Did you take off on your dad or Aunt Jess? You shouldn’t do that, you know. It’s so busy here today – it’d be easy to get lost…”

“I’ve been here plenty of times,” Jack shrugs it off. “If I get lost, I just go to security. Dad always finds me.”

“Yeah, but, maybe your dad worries when he’s lost you, even if _you_ know where you are…” 

Jack’s brow wrinkles, as if he’s never thought about this before, and then Hotch surges through the crowd with a patented look of worry that melts when he sees his son wrapped around Reid. He smiles, all bright and unrestrained, and Reid warms immediately, feeling shivers along his spine to be the recipient of such delight. And Hotch looks insanely casual, wearing jeans and a sweater so thin and fine that it might be cashmere. Reid is overwhelmed by the desire to touch it and he wonders if he’s ever seen Hotch in jeans before but decides right there that he should never wear anything else because they fit him better than any suit he owns and surely he’s not the only one who’s noticed that because many eyes in the crowd have followed him as he strides over and, oh god, he’s got to pull it together before he’s expected to say something or, perhaps, _not_ expire from happiness at having Aaron Hotchner grin at him like that after not seeing him for almost a month…

“Hey,” Hotch rumbles when he reaches them, dimples on full display. “Thank God he was going after you. He took off like a shot. I had no idea what got into him.” He looks down at Jack. “Buddy, we’ve talked about running off without me or Jess in public places, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, Dad,” Jack mumbles and leans hard against Reid as if he’ll protect him. “But I wasn’t running away. I was running _to_ Spencer, see? And he’s okay.”

“Yes, Spencer’s okay.” Hotch’s grin widens, making his teachable moment less effective for Jack, and making Reid’s chest get tighter. “But all I knew was you were there one minute and gone the next. You have to tell me where you’re going, okay?”

“Okay, Dad. Sorry,” Jack ducks his eyes. Hotch reaches out and cups his cheek fondly.

“S’okay. No harm done in the end.” Hotch looks to Reid. “And you found Spencer.”

“Small world,” Reid manages to choke out and hopes his expression is normal or polite or something unflummoxed. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s Saturday,” Hotch proclaims like it’s obvious. “Gotta do something fun with this guy.”

Hotch ruffles Jack’s hair and Jack squirms away and smooths it down again like it happens a lot and he wished it didn’t. Hotch smirks at him.

“Why are you here? I would’ve thought the crowds on a weekend would turn you off.”

Reid points up to the brontosaurus. “Dinosaurs. And I sorta forgot what day it was.”

Hotch laughs at this like it’s been years since he last did it. It’s light and spontaneous, but so completely foreign that Reid just finds himself staring in unhelpful awe at it. Jesus, this guy…

“Well, how fortunate for us that you were absentminded today,” Hotch keeps grinning. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s… it’s good to see you too,” Reid chokes out quietly. Because it is – so good it’s almost unseemly – but it also puts one of his problems in stark relief. His connection to Hotch has become an addiction, and Reid knows all about the problems of addiction.

Jack helpfully interjects at this point and asks Reid to lead them through the dinosaur exhibit. Reid was actually on his way out when they met, but he changes his plans and guides them through the various skeletons, fossils, and recreations of prehistoric life as Jack peppers him with facts and occasionally bizarre questions. Hotch trails behind them, a smile permanently fixed to his face, shuffling indulgently as if he’s babysitting them both.

“The colors in the artist renderings are just guesses, really. We don’t have skin or scales from that age, so scientists are inferring from context. Taking into account how mammals, insects, amphibians and the like look now…”

Reid looks down and sees Jack squinting at him dubiously.

“Inferring? What’s that?” he asks.

“Like… serious guessing. Like thinking how they might blend in. Camouflage, you know.”

Jacks brightens like the answer makes sense.

“But they could’ve been purple for all we know,” Reid smirks.

“Purple?”

“Maybe,” Reid shrugs as they move on.

“Purple!” Jack seems obsessed with this notion. Hotch speaks up from behind them making them both turn. He’s still smiling.

“They probably weren’t purple, Jack. But it’s exciting to think about the possibilities, isn’t it?”

“Do you have scientific proof they weren’t purple, or are you just being stubborn?” Reid lifts his chin in mock defense of his ridiculous theory, much to Jack’s delight.

“I’m just trying to forestall any science fair submissions that look like a box of spilled Crayolas,” he rumbles back with a wink. “I’m sure paleontologists are excellent guessers.”

“A doctorate automatically elevates the guessing,” Reid sniffs, and Hotch grins.

“I’m sure of that,” he says softly.

“I’m guessing purple,” Reid adds for Jack’s benefit.

“Yeah!” Jack agrees loudly.

“Okay,” Hotch concedes, his reason being defeated by enthusiasm.

They move through the exhibit and Hotch shuffles up to walk with them, so they look like a group, or a family. He occasionally brushes against Reid, but when Reid glances at him, it always seems accidental or because he’s trying to wrangle his son. Reid’s pulse is too fast the whole time, but he can’t make himself pull away or excuse himself to leave; the scene is too warm, too familiar to part from, despite his undercurrent of discomfort. He’s never had the experience of a real family…

They spend forty minutes exploring the exhibit, each pointing out their favorites. Reid is shocked to discover that Hotch likes the changyuraptor best because being a winged predator seems advantageous in a world full of land-bound lizards, and the feathers are striking.

“Why not be deadly _and_ dashing, right?” he chuckles when Reid just blinks at him, and then his cheeks pink slightly at the scrutiny.

_This fucking guy…_

Reid sticks with the brontosaurus because he can’t seem to get over how enormous they are, and Jack chooses a stegosaurus.

“Because they’re hard to eat and they have a brain in their butt,” he nods authoritatively. Reid can’t refute that logic.

Eventually they reach the interactive section and Jack gleefully dives into the crowd of other kids as he troops through recreated environments and measures himself against various murals of accurately-sized specimens. Hotch and Reid hang back with the other parents, waving and obediently taking pictures when Jack shouts at them to do so.

“He really loves it here, huh?” Reid murmurs eventually, watching Jack and another boy pretending to be velociraptors after watching a brief film about them.

“Yeah,” Hotch sighs warmly. “He’s well into his dinosaur phase, so this is always a winning idea when I have to make up for something.”

Reid faces him. “What are you making up for today?”

“I missed his costume parade at school for Halloween,” Hotch glances at his feet briefly, and then looks up at the crowd of kids again. “I was in North Dakota instead.”

“Ahh,” Reid nods. “What did he dress up as?”

“Me,” Hotch mumbles.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

A quiet moment falls between them in the loud buzz of the museum.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Reid murmurs, and it catches Hotch’s attention. “I mean, I don’t understand how you work so much and still manage raising such a neat kid.”

Hotch smiles, but there’s sadness in it. “Thank you for thinking Jack is neat.”

“Well, he is. Clearly.”

Hotch huffs. “I don’t feel like I can take the credit for that. I’m not around enough. Jess is doing most of the work, just like Haley did before her. I mostly do stuff like this: trying to bribe his indulgence for my mistakes. But it won’t work much longer.” Hotch lets out a long sigh. “He’s growing up so quickly now…”

Reid watches him looking wistfully at Jack and doesn’t have a single helpful thing to say. But he finds it curious that a man so bold and assured in his professional life is so passive in his personal decisions. Suddenly, Hotch snaps out of his self-reflection and glances at Reid and offers him a small smile.

“Sorry if we waylaid any plans you had this afternoon. I’m sure that squiring us around the Smithsonian wasn’t on your vacation agenda. But I appreciate it.” He pauses, then looks away. “This has made today extra special for Jack.”

“Not you?” Reid blurts and then wants to retract the question. Hotch glances back, open and slightly surprised.

“For me too,” he says, then quietly continues without breaking eye contact. “I’ve thought of you often while you’ve been away.”

“You… you have?”

Hotch nods. “I wanted to call, but then… decided I shouldn’t.”

“Why didn’t you?” Reid asks with his pulse hammering in his throat. Hotch shrugs and then deftly deflects.

“How’s the time off been? Have you made any new plans?”

“It’s been good and bad,” Reid sighs and shrugs into himself while Hotch watches. “I went on a road trip up north. That was pretty great, though I wasn’t confident the Amazon would make it there and back. Chalk one up for the German engineering prowess of the late 60s I guess…”

Hotch chuckles.

“But I’ve also spent a lot of time in my head,” Reid continues. “And that’s not always wise.”

“Maybe it’s necessary though,” Hotch says after a long pause. Reid looks at him and sees his smile has disappeared, replaced by the worried frown he’s so familiar with. “If you’re thinking about switching gears in your life, that’s going to be a difficult decision. Not easy to think about.”

“Do _you_ think I should be making a change?” Reid asks, relieved that he finally said it out loud to the one person whose opinion on the subject holds any value.

“It shouldn’t matter what I think.”

“Maybe it shouldn’t,” Reid says too quickly and sharply. “But it does. It absolutely matters to me.”

Hotch shrugs again, looking uncomfortable.

“C’mon, Hotch. I’m asking a friend what he thinks. I really need to hear it.”

Hotch stares at him for quite a while, with the crowd of parents chatting around them. Children are laughing and yelling in the distance, polite narration from various installations drone in the background, and conversations float in and out of Reid’s hearing range, but all he can focus on is Hotch and his conflicted expression. _Why is this so hard for him? Surely, it should only be me who’s distressed by the possible outcome…_

“Speaking as a friend, and nowhere near the same zip code as your boss,” Hotch says eventually, laying the disclaimer out with both hands in front of him. “I wish you’d stay.”

The statement is quiet, and his eyes get sad and burdened as he says it. Then he shakes it away and clears his throat before moving on.

“I wish it because the job means more when you’re there, because you elevate us all as investigators with your intellectual leaps, and because… I enjoy it. I enjoy working with you. It’s one of the few things I look forward to.”

Reid just blinks, unable to process the words. He can’t seem to swallow or speak, and his whole body is pulsing now, desperate with intent. Hotch takes his silence as a prompt to keep going.

“But I know my personal wishes are selfish. I’m not sure, objectively, that continuing with the BAU is your best option.” He pauses and watches Reid for a reaction which doesn’t come. “It’s certainly the one with the most inertia, and the most emotional ties…”

Hotch takes an awkward breath.

“It might be the easiest option to choose, but not necessarily the best one for you. For your psychological wellbeing, or for your growth.”

“My… growth?” Reid wheezes.

Hotch shrugs. “Your intellectual pursuits. The challenges you need to stimulate new passions, new avenues of opportunity. You weren’t always on the road to being a profiler, Reid. You had a lot of different interests once. The Bureau narrowed your view for a time, but it doesn’t have to stay that way.”

Reid mulls that insight over. There’s a kernel of truth in it, and he can admit his focus has become thinner and sharpened by the necessity of the work. And perhaps that thin view makes him more susceptible to the chimeric empathy that overwhelmed him in Las Cruces. Then Hotch releases a sigh that pulls him back to the museum and their conversation.

“And I haven’t forgotten what you said in Las Cruces. About wanting you to stay because I didn’t want to be left alone in my silence, in the job.”

Hotch’s features become drawn, as if this thought has physical weight that sits on him.

“And you’re not wrong about that, Reid,” he continues softly, almost ashamed. “But that’s the worst reason for you to stay, I know that. And because I honestly want something more for you, I need to steer you away from the same decisions I’ve made. _This_ is why I’ve been so hesitant to offer my opinion. I’m torn between what I want and what will make you happy. And I _know_ how my opinions can affect you. I’m trying moderate myself here.”

Reid blinks rapidly and then clears his throat. “Thank you for… caring that much, I guess. And thank you for explaining it a little.”

Hotch suddenly grabs Reid’s arm as tightly as he did that day on the jet.

“It’s been hard not to reach out and convince you in my favor. I’ve always believed you belong with me-” Hotch blinks. “Uh, with us. But if I’m wrong, that’s a tremendous disservice to you. As your friend, and in the spirit of how you’ve always looked out for me, I have to do right by you, Reid. That’s the only reason why I pushed you into this forced vacation – to be free of my influence for once.”

The blinking has almost overtaken Reid, his vision stuttering like old film stock.

“I know. I mean… a part of me knew what you were doing was in my interests. I know you care about me…”

“I do,” Hotch says so quietly it’s almost lost in the crowd, and then he slowly pulls Reid in and wraps him in a hug. His hands are broad and warm across Reid’s back, but he’s holding him lightly, as if he’ll let go at the slightest provocation. Reid breathes hard and unevenly, shocked down to his bones by the sudden and unexplained intimacy. And then his body betrays him as his hands curl around Hotch and his chin sinks down to rest on his shoulder. It feels so good to be held, to lean into someone else’s strength for a moment. Hotch even smells comforting – like soap and fabric softener and the lightest hint of aftershave. Like the sunlit comfort of a busy life…

“Is this okay?” Hotch murmurs, but his hands rub light circles into Reid’s back. Reid stutters out an unexpected laugh, hoping to cover up his shaking excitement.

“Too late if it isn’t,” he says, and when Hotch tries to pull away, he holds him in place. “It’s fine. Really.”

“I know… how you feel isn’t making things any easier,” Hotch rumbles after a moment.

“Yeah,” Reid breathes. “But you haven’t done anything wrong. I want you to know that. My… emotional responses are on me, not you. And there’s nothing wrong with this, right now…”

But there probably is. It certainly isn’t helping him made a clean break or a definitive plan to get somewhere better in his life. With effort, Reid pulls back to look Hotch in the eye. He wants to stay there forever, against Hotch’s warmth, his hands outlining him in a way he shouldn’t…

“You care for me, and that’s okay. It’s different than how I care for you, and I’m trying not to confuse the two. But it’s fine to show it, Hotch.”

Now it’s Hotch’s turn to blink too much, then he makes a gravelly noise and nods emphatically while saying nothing. Reid nods back and steps away, his hands sliding one last time across the warm cashmere. It almost hurts to back away, but, realistically, he can’t justify what he’s just said if he continues gripping onto him in a public place. And Jack’s within view…

“I’m glad we ran into you,” Hotch says eventually, and attempts a smile.

“Me too,” Reid smiles, genuine but sad. He knows what he’s going to do now. “I needed this.”

“Oh?” Hotch cocks an eyebrow.

“Yeah.” Reid rolls onto the balls of his feet and then back down again, jamming his hands in his pockets where they can still remember the cashmere in peace. “When my vacation time is up, I’m gonna come back to the unit.”

Hotch stares at him, giving him no insight into how he feels about this decision. So, Reid just pushes through it.

“I’ll give it one last shot, because the work means something to me. It really does.” He holds Hotch’s stare and gives one back more honest and fortified than he thought he was capable of in this situation. “But if I can’t get to a place of peace, about us,” he gestures between them and knows he’s not disguising anything in this moment. “Or if I have another situation like Las Cruces, I’ll have to make a serious change, Hotch. I can’t go on as I have been – I understand that now.”

Hotch’s mouth tightens and the burdensome look he wears at work returns to him, but he nods knowingly.

“I’ll give it three months. A trial period, I guess. It shouldn’t take longer than that to figure out if I can handle things or not.”

“Okay, Spence,” Hotch says quietly, and Reid flinches because he never calls him Spence. Hotch turns to look out over the crowd of children, and then he takes a breath and straightens his shoulders. “I don’t know if I’ve ever said I’m sorry about this.”

“Sorry?” Reid blinks. “Why would you be sorry?”

“Because I haven’t made anything better for you, even though I’ve tried,” he sighs, clasping his hands behind his back like he’s submitting to arrest, like he’s guilty of something. “And if I’d been more self aware earlier, I might have avoided all of this for both of us.”

“I don’t see how. You couldn’t have anticipated my attraction. I mean, it was a shock to me, so-”

“But what if I played into it somehow,” Hotch turns quickly and seems distressed by the idea. “What if I _did_ something, or said something that unlocked the possibility in you?”

Reid can’t think for a second. “I…uh… I’m not sure that’s how it works. I mean, I’m no expert but… all you did was be my friend, so… I’m pretty sure the responsibility squarely falls on me for this.”

Hotch makes a weird noise in his throat, like he’s choking. “Maybe. But people often misunderstand me. So, I guess I feel responsible too.”

“Well, I don’t think you should,” Reid mumbles, his throat full and tight. Hotch doesn’t look at him, so he calls his name until his eyes drift back. “You’re a kind, generous, thoughtful friend, and I’m the one who turned that around one day and decided it was romantic affection. You can’t help that. It’s _my problem_ to solve. Don’t beat yourself up because I misconstrued your intentions.”

“Misconstrued my intentions…” Hotch murmurs, his eyes going distant. Reid waits, but nothing happens.

“Uh, yeah,” Reid shuffles awkwardly, deciding that maybe he ought to leave before he ruins what is otherwise a wonderful encounter. “So, give yourself a break. I’m gonna figure this out one way or another. I won’t let it cause problems for you.”

“Cause problems?”

“Yes,” Reid nods with authority, and that feeling starts to seep into his words as he speaks. It’s going to be fine – he’s got a plan now. “You tried helping me with this by respecting my sensitivities. But that negated any responsibility on my part – I was a passive participant in the whole thing and, as a result, nothing has changed. So now I’m going to take action, make choices. And you won’t have to worry about the outcome on your career at the Bureau.”

“My career?” Hotch looks as if Reid’s just started speaking in tongues.

“Yeah. You told me yourself that it’s the primary focus of your life, and I’m sure this… instability from me has made you worry about how it’ll reflect on your leadership.”

“Reid, I don’t care about how this effects my job.”

“That’s not true and we both know it,” Reid gives him a serious stare. “You stuck with the job when it cost you your marriage. You stayed with it after Haley was murdered. Every time you’re wounded in the field and the brass suggests retirement, you choose the job. It’s a logical extension of this pattern that you’d be concerned about how I might impact your career trajectory. So, I’m telling you: don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

“Impact my career? You’re wrong, Reid. I wouldn’t let the job come between our friendship.”

Hotch seems angry, almost offended, and Reid steps back to observe it because he can count on one hand all the times Hotch has been pissed at him. He doesn’t understand the hotness of the reaction, or why Hotch is fighting against his pattern of behavior over _this._

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Reid says softly, still confused. “I’m just analysing the facts as I see them.”

“Do you honestly think I’d let the job come before you?” Hotch stares Reid down like he’s an unsub in a standoff. Reid’s pulse rabbits around, feeling nervous and upset that this conversation has gone sideways so quickly.

“Y-yes,” Reid stammers, eyes wide and blinking rapidly. “I mean, you always do. That’s your history. W-why would I be any different?”

Hotch reacts as if Reid just slapped him across the face, but before he has a chance to say anything, Jack runs up to them both, smiling and with a bouncing new friend in tow.

“Hey Dad! This is Lucien. He likes stegosauruses too and he’s transferring to my school in January. Isn’t that cool?”

“Hey, Jack-”

“He was telling me all about robots. You know… robots they use in space an’ stuff. On the shuttle. His mom is taking him to the Air and Space Museum this afternoon and I was wondering if we could go too ‘cause there’s lots of stuff about robots there and he promised to show me the moon lander-”

“I’m making a comic book about moon robots,” Lucien offers without prompting.

“Yeah! Moon robots, Dad! And he says I can help with the coloring but I need to see more robots to figure out how to do that and-”

“Jack, can you hold on a sec, please? Spencer and I were having a conversation-”

“But Lucien’s mom is leaving soon. Can we go with them, please? Please? I know the museum was my treat for today, but I didn’t know Lucien when I decided-”

“Jack,” Hotch snaps, and then tries to calm down when Jack’s eyes get huge and hesitant from his tone. “Just give me a moment to think, okay?”

Reid senses it’s time to leave, and hastily moves around Jack and Lucien, both blinking at Hotch with equal parts hope and fear.

“I should go. Really.”

“Reid,” Hotch calls out, looking very much like he wants to bark at him as well. “Wait-”

“Maybe Spencer can come to see the robots too…” Jack murmurs, and Reid thinks he’s pretty brave to do that considering his father’s stormy expression. Reid gives Jack’s shoulder a squeeze as he passes him, and then a smile when he turns.

“Another time, okay, Jack? You can show me around next time, because you’ll know everything about it.” Reid winks and Jack smiles shyly back. Then Reid’s eyes return to Hotch. “Why not take him? It’ll be fun…”

“I want to finish our conversation.” Hotch’s eyebrows lower.

“It’s finished.” Reid straightens and gives as good a scowl as he’s receiving. He doesn’t know what got under Hotch’s skin so suddenly, but he’s sure the resulting explanation isn’t kid-friendly. And today is supposed to be about Jack. He gives Hotch a hopeful smile instead. “I’ll contact you about my return date.”

Hotch’s mouth settles into a thin, pale line. He looks unhappy that everything is beyond his control: Reid, Jack, even what he’ll end up doing for the rest of his Saturday.

“Enjoy the rest of the weekend,” Reid offers, but gets nothing from Hotch but resentment. So, Reid turns to Jack instead. “Good luck with the moon robots…”

He winks at Jack and Jack grins back, waving as Reid backs into the crowd towards the exit. He can hear Jack’s high voice yelling, “Bye, Spencer! Bye!” as he moves through the mass of people, but when he turns for a last look, they’ve disappeared. It leaves Reid a little unsteady – like he hallucinated the whole thing – but he shakes it off and heads home.

On Monday, he emails Hotch to tell him he’ll return to work in a week’s time. The reply doesn’t ding his phone until almost nine hours later, and all it says is, “Fine. See you at 8:30 am.”.


	7. Interim Analysis

The return to work is smoother than Reid imagines it will be. He doesn’t feel a creeping claustrophobia when he steps off the elevator on the sixth floor, and he makes an obvious sigh of relief when he settles into his creaky desk chair once again. Emily smirks at him over the partition separating their desks and when he finally rolls his eyes and asks her what she’s thinking, she just shrugs with a knowing smile.

“You look like you sorted some shit, is all. You have a weirdly-smug Reid-like confidence that I’ve missed. It’s good to see it, dumbass.”

He feels his face heat, but he gives her a smile anyway. He’s not sure he’s sorted out much – his job, yes, but his emotions are still a tangled flaming mess. But he enjoys her confidence in him. Emily is so capable, and if she finds _you_ capable, well, that’s quite something in his opinion. Others make similar comments; Morgan asks him bluntly if he got laid over his vacation before Garcia flicks a fuzzy-topped pen at his head.

“What?” Morgan scowls at his favorite boo.

“If I hadn’t met your mama, I would ask if you were raised by wolves,” Garcia snarks.

“You’re thinking it too,” he blusters. “I’ve just got the balls to ask.” 

Garcia rolls her eyes at him in a way that suggests he’ll be hearing about the transgression well into the future. J.J. laughs at them both.

“You can ask all you want, but you know he won’t tell you,” she chuckles and then throws Reid a quick wink. “Spence isn’t a kiss-and-tell type.”

His face feels like it’s on fire, but he knows he’s smiling too. He missed them. “There’s no telling because there was no kissing. Or anything related to kissing.”

Then Emily, surprisingly, comes to the rescue. “Lay off, you parasites. He just has vacay afterglow. That’s what you’re seeing. He had a deep, meaningful relationship with professional disinterest for a month, and now he’s as boneless as a sailor after a night of shore leave. No one won the pool, so suck it up.”

The group makes a collective sigh of frustration.

“What pool?” Reid asks as he imagines the off-color narratives his friends cooked up about him and then shared with one another for betting purposes.

Everyone’s happy to see him back, and he’s both delighted and surprised to find he was missed. Even Rossi has a wide grin for him and plumbs him for vacation details (no doubt hoping to win the pool everyone else has given up on). The only person who doesn’t seem pleased is Hotch. Despite his prior notice and everything that was said at the museum, Hotch appears wooden and distant when Reid comes back. He reverts to the avoiding behavior he did after Reid first confessed his feelings, but there isn’t the gentle deferential quality about it anymore. To Reid, it feels like Hotch is dodging him and he doesn’t know why. It hurts – terribly – but when Reid calms down enough to look at the behavior objectively, he can see reasons for it. It could be an extension of the distance he forced on Reid during his vacation – to give him a chance to evaluate his trial return in peace. It could be a by-product of guilt at his failure to help. It could be a loss of faith in Reid that he doesn’t wish to acknowledge, despite reassurances he’s given on that subject. Or it could be him insulating himself from the fallout if Reid decides to quit the Bureau; Reid has always known how Hotch feels about his job. All of these options are reasonable, but they all make him feel viscerally rejected. And, predictably, Reid retreats in turn until they barely spend any time together.

The only positive Reid can exhume from this is it makes his potential exit from the unit seem less fraught and complicated than he imagined. Hotch, it seems, is the reason he’s felt compelled to keep coming back. If Hotch pulls away… it doesn’t matter how much he loves the rest of the team. The center won’t hold. Suddenly, a bunch of possibilities spring to life before him without the burden of his responsibility to the BAU.

A scene three weeks into his return from forced leave hammers this point home for him. He shuffles to the staff kitchen for more coffee and when he turns, Hotch is standing in the doorway, unreadable and with an empty coffee cup in his hand. Reid’s endocrine system fires up automatically, but he tamps down the increased heartrate and dry mouth almost as quickly.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” Hotch says neutrally. His stare is fixed on Reid, but it’s almost like he doesn’t have anywhere else to look. There’s no intention behind it. Reid ducks his eyes to his shoes.

“How have you been?”

“Fine, thank you.”

Reid waits for more, but Hotch remains silent. Reid starts to feel a weird electricity along his spine a lot like dread. “Did you end up taking Jack to the Air and Space Museum?”

Hotch pauses. “Yes. He and Lucien have become fast friends. The moon robot comic is well underway, with plenty of heated arguments about robot meals, pets, and clothing options.”

Hotch’s voice warms, and Reid looks up to see his expression has cracked a little as well.

“Moon robots have pets?” he asks hopefully.

“Apparently.” The corner of Hotch’s mouth curls ever so slightly. “Lucien voted for cats, but Jack is adamant that they keep lemurs.”

Reid’s eyebrows question that statement.

“Because they can tether themselves to their robot with their tails.”

Reid grins and it makes Hotch blink uncertainly. _What a wonderful idea – Jack is so imaginative…_

“Oh, that’s great actually. Really great,” Reid chuckles. “Cats would never submit to that. They are the perfect example of indifference.”

“Yes.” Hotch’s mask finally breaks into a smile. “And then they argued over the freedom of a robot to choose a pet of their own, and whether untethered cats could be convinced to wear jet packs to offset the lack of gravity.”

Reid laughs loudly at that, using his free hand to grip the counter for support. “I think that raises more logistical questions, quite frankly…”

“Indeed. The debate remains unresolved and passionate.”

Hotch’s expression has softened, and Reid’s mind tells him the distance between them for three weeks must have been a misunderstanding. It’s remarkable how quickly he abandons logic in the presence of his greatest addiction. He steps closer.

“Arguing boys notwithstanding, you must be pleased.”

Hotch looks confused.

“Jack’s made a new friend,” Reid clarifies. “I know you worry about his socialization, so making this connection with Lucien – and that it’s so avid – that must comfort you. He connects to others well. And a passionate friendship can change your whole outlook.”

The moment he says it, Hotch’s smile disappears and his expression locks down again. Reid had been leaning forward, but this sudden shift makes him pull up and tense before he can think about it. _What just happened?_

“Uhhh… what I meant was-”

“Yes, I’m pleased for Jack,” Hotch interrupts and briskly moves past Reid to the coffee urn. “Lucien is a fine boy and they have fun together. Every parent worries about their child making friends.”

“Yes, but… in your case,” Reid’s mouth goes dry again. “I mean, given your concerns over your own ability to make lasting connections-”

“Jack isn’t me,” Hotch says abruptly, tending to his coffee with his back to Reid. Then he turns on his heel and marches out of the kitchen. “Excuse me, I have a meeting with the AD in five minutes.”

“Uh, yeah… s-sure,” Reid stammers in his wake, heart shriveling in his chest. “Tell Jack I can’t wait to read the comic…”

But Hotch just keeps walking.

Reid spends the rest of the day lost in that conversation, picking it apart and trying to understand why it crashed and burned. He finds that the analysis follows him home and keeps him distracted well into the night. As he rereads the same paragraph from his mother’s latest letter for the fourth time, he finally shakes himself out of it. 

This has to stop. The endless circular path between friendship and something more, care and disinterest – he wants to get off it. It feels juvenile and pointless. The truth of the matter is that Reid is still in love, and Hotch fundamentally is not. No amount of delicacy and compromise will make those two facts lace together satisfactorily for either of them. And another set of facts has proven itself to be true: Hotch is committed to his job, and Reid can live without it. When the facts are combined, the solution is obvious. Reid should leave the unit. It’s the only way he can move on, sever his connection with Hotch, and it leaves the right people in the right places. 

Reid slouches deeply into his sofa and lets the idea seep into his pores. His instinctive reaction is panic at the loss of his friends, his professional identity, and, of course, Hotch. But once that spurt of fear washes over him, he realizes that’s not necessarily true. He won’t lose his friends – they won’t let him go. Garcia and JJ might even start stalking him. And he wouldn’t lose his professional caché either. He could switch departments – he’s been approached by several over the years who would be happy to have him and his profiling abilities. Even if he left the Bureau, he knows he wouldn’t be at loose ends for long. He _knows_ this. 

The only thing that would be irrevocably altered is _Hotch._ It would be the end of that friendship. That’s the only way this could work. No catch-up phone calls or odd days out at the museum with Jack. No more late-night discussions, no more texting weird facts to one another… All of it ends with a hard stop.

And Reid sits there, letting the panic and pain of that reality crash into him again and again, knuckles white where his hands grip each other as he tries to get through it. Because he has to get through it. He knows it’s the only way to get to the peace he’s glimpsed on the other side.


	8. Unexpected Side Effects

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has an anxious ending, so if that sort of thing bothers you, please wait for the next chapter to be posted before reading this one.

It’s almost two months to the day the team left Las Cruces when Hotch pokes his head into the conference room where Reid and Emily are holed up blitzing through overdue case files.

“Good. You’re both here,” he rumbles, and their heads pop up in unison. Hotch is frowning and it’s serious, the lines etched deep on either side of his mouth leading up to weary eyes. “Do you have your go bags here?”

Reid nods, gut tightening.

“What’s up?” Emily breezes.

“Las Cruces PD found another Gravedigger victim. A fresh one – less than two days in the ground.”

Reid blinks rapidly and he feels the blood drain from his face. “That’s impossible.”

Both Emily and Hotch look at him, but Hotch is the one who says, “I know”. And it is softer than Reid feels he deserves.

“It must be a mistake. Or a copycat,” Emily huffs, glancing back to Hotch.

“Marquez is still heading up the investigation,” Hotch continues, not really looking at either of them. “He filed a formal complaint with the AD this morning about the Unit’s behavior in this case. So, we have to look into this new victim and see if we missed anything.” His eyes suddenly flick to Reid. “Which we didn’t.”

Reid can’t say anything. What if he had this all wrong from the start? What if he convinced everyone to give the killer a free pass? What if he roped Hotch into his madness as well? He felt so certain, but now he doubts all of it. A voice in his head whispers, _you didn’t even know what falling in love felt like – how could you trust your instincts here, with mass murder?_

“I’ve convinced the AD that it should be just the three of us,” Hotch goes on. “I don’t want to drag the whole team into this. It’s going to be a hostile environment when we get there. Reid, I need you because no one knows the case better. And I made the decision to close the file, so I have to face that. Prentiss, you’re coming along for a balanced perspective. If we went wrong here, I need an objective assessment of the new evidence.”

Emily nods, lips thinning. “You got it. When do we leave?”

“The jet will be ready in forty minutes,” Hotch says and then the room goes awkwardly silent.

“If I got it wrong…” Reid blurts quietly to no one in particular. That brings Hotch fully into the conference room.

“You didn’t get it wrong.”

“There’s a new body that says otherwise,” Reid sighs without looking at him.

“You didn’t close this case. I did. Only I have the authority to make those kinds of sweeping decisions. This is _my_ responsibility, Reid.”

Reid glances at him, feeling tired in the marrow of his bones. “You realize that’s no consolation at all, right? You trusted my judgment, and, maybe, I only saw what I wanted-”

“Stop,” Hotch says sharply and it bounces off the walls of the room making both Reid and Emily sit up. He’s glaring at Reid, almost like a challenge. Reid has no experience with this reaction from him at all. “It’s premature to start the handwringing process now. We need to get on the ground in Las Cruces and assess the situation for what it is. Understood?”

“Y-yes,” Reid murmurs as Emily’s hand finds its way to his knee under the table and gives him a bolstering squeeze.

“Good,” Hotch rumbles, his brows descending like storm clouds. “Now, let’s get ready to head to the airstrip. Meet you both at the motor pool in ten minutes.”

Hotch strides away into the bullpen without another word and Reid lets out a breath he’s been holding.

“He’s protecting you.” Emily’s hand squeezes him again. When he looks at her, her gaze is shadowed and worried; everyone’s afraid of the combination of him and this case.

“I don’t need his protection,” he mumbles to the scattered files across the table. He doesn’t, and how Hotch acts towards him lately doesn’t feel like protection at all. Emily huffs out a quick laugh.

“That’s the least reasonable thing you’ve said all week. _I’m_ glad to have his protection on this one, and people aren’t even gunning for me on it. It’s stupid to resent it because you’ll need it and you can’t stop him from doing it anyway.”

“He’s risking his job by backing me up,” Reid snaps, feeling her assertion is absurd and way off base. Emily just shrugs and begins packing up their files.

“That’s his choice to make, Reid.”

“But… his job is everything to him,” he sputters back.

Emily stands and cradles her files in her arms. “This job should never mean more than a person.”

Reid huffs. “That’s not how he feels about it.”

“Maybe how he feels is changing.”

Reid looks at her and she gives him another shrug, like it’s a viable theory but she has nothing to back it up. Then she turns and walks out into the bullpen as well.

“Get your ass in gear, Genius…” she calls out over her shoulder.

\---- 

Las Cruces is a shitshow.

The media is waiting for them when they land, and Hotch muscles through them with terse, “No comment” statements and a simmering anger that ripples off him in waves. When they arrive at the PD, Marquez is smirking, arms folded, waiting for them to come to him for information for once.

“How was your flight?” he breezes, and Reid knows who tipped off the press. “I told you this wasn’t over…”

“I’d like to see the evidence,” Hotch demands, ignoring the smirk. “Crime scene photos, autopsy report, forensics… let’s get into it.”

Marquez just laughs and pawns them off on a patrol officer who looks terrified of all of them.

On the surface, the murders look like Gravedigger killings: same location, same mathematical precision to the grave site, two unrelated victims in one coffin. But the discrepancies stand out almost immediately. One of the victims suffered such an extreme skull fracture that they most likely never regained consciousness in the grave, leaving the other victim to die alone. Both bodies showed signs of forceful restraint, which was absent in the previous murders. And though the coffin was made with simple, untreated pine boards, it was commercially constructed, and the lid screwed down. The previous coffins were made by hand, assembled using box joints and simple nails. But perhaps the most telling detail occurs when Reid sits back from the collection of reports, evidence bags, and scene photos and sighs.

“These murders are about rage. The victims are inconsequential. There’s none of the… _care_ of the previous killings here. None of the desperation and loneliness.”

Hotch and Emily stare at him owlishly, but then Hotch nods slowly in agreement. A heavy silence falls over them.

“Well then,” Emily clears her throat. “Who has enough insight into the original murders to replicate them, and whom is their anger aimed at if not the victims?”

They come up with a couple of options, but the amount of details that the copycat got right narrows their focus to a cop. Someone with access to information that was never made public, but also a person too impatient to nail down every aspect identically. Someone who didn’t pay attention to the emotional motivation or the timeline that the BAU had established.

Eventually, Emily decides to introduce the elephant to the rest of the room.

“C’mon, we’re all thinking the same thing,” she huffs as she leans back in her chair and glances up at the ceiling tiles.

“Marquez,” Hotch mumbles, brows lowering. Reid’s pulse speeds up.

“He’s the only one angry enough for this level of violence,” Emily rolls her head to glance at Hotch. “And he must be stupid-angry to go through this amount of orchestration just to get this case back in the spotlight again.”

“He said he didn’t need us,” Hotch sighs, rubbing his face as if he’s exhausted by the depravity of people, and his lack of surprise at it.

“You said the Gravedigger was a personal insult for him,” Reid whispers. Hotch nods.

“So, is this rage for _us?_ ” Emily asks. “Or Strickland?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s for anyone who gets in his way too much. Maybe he’s been building up a sense of persecution for years, and this case was the thing that finally set it off.” Hotch takes a deep breath and then shakes away his weariness. “All I know is that we need conclusive proof this time. We need a link between him and the crime scene, or the victims. Something. We’re not accusing a cop in his own shop without evidence to back it up.”

“Well, we have DNA collected from the victims, right?” Reid asks and is confused when both Hotch and Emily stare at him blankly. “They fought back. He had to restrain them. He had to have left some of his DNA behind in the process.”

Hotch’s expression lifts marginally. “We have the investigation team’s profiles on file to eliminate them in case of scene contamination…”

“Exactly,” Reid nods.

“Fuck,” Emily sighs to the ceiling tiles again. “Is anyone else hoping that we’re wrong here?”

But they aren’t wrong.

Marquez’s prints are found on the coffin lid and partials are on all of the screws as well. Even if he were stupid enough to handle crime scene evidence without gloves, he wouldn’t leave prints on all the screws through a crime scene mistake. The damning evidence is his blood found on one of the victim’s clothes – almost too small to detect with the eye – and his blood under that same victim’s fingernails. It’s enough for an arrest warrant and an uncomfortable meeting between Hotch and the Las Cruces Chief of Detectives. That meeting ends with a lot of one-sided yelling muffled from the Chief’s office and Hotch walking out, ramrod straight and stone-faced while the Chief follows him moments later, pink-cheeked and stormy. Whatever was said there, Hotch doesn’t repeat, but it must have been irrefutable because the Chief immediately goes into action, calling the DA’s office and arranging warrants for Marquez, his work and personal car, and his home.

“I don’t understand it,” Emily mutters as she watches a team of detectives who don’t work with Marquez suit up with Las Cruces SWAT to execute a search warrant on Marquez’s house. “He wasn’t even careful about it. And he went out of his way to drag us back into the investigation. He knew we’d forensics the hell outta the new bodies…”

“Hubris maybe,” Hotch murmurs as he watches the scene, his arms crossed. “You do the job long enough, the temptation is always there.”

“Temptation?” Emily cocks her head in confusion. Reid is watching the lines around Hotch’s eyes and mouth get incrementally deeper.

“To try it yourself. To get away with it.” Hotch sighs. “Thinking your position will give you a better view of the outcome so you can manipulate it any way you want. That’s where the arrogance comes into it.”

Reid shivers and can’t stop. Because it makes a weird sort of sense to him. And the exhausted tone Hotch is using says it makes sense to him as well.

“C’mon…” Emily blurts after a moment of silence, her brows creasing as she rejects his assumption. Hotch just turns and looks at her.

“You’ve never thought about it.” He says it evenly, but it is a question, and one that Emily can’t answer without compromising herself. All three of them know that. All of them know what it feels like to kill someone, and all of them know that you aren’t always as disgusted as you should be.

“He was unjustifiably angry when we came into this case,” Hotch continues. “It’s not an unreasonable theory that he just wanted to show us up.”

“That’s not much of a plan,” Emily snorts. 

“No, it isn’t,” Hotch says quietly and turns back to the team suiting up in front of them. “And murder isn’t much of a career goal.”

Reid’s pulse is racing, and he can’t look away from the sadness that’s seeping out of Hotch’s edges. Then Hotch suddenly turns and stares directly at him, his sadness undiluted and raw for a moment. Reid is frozen and mute, silenced by the way he’s been singled out after weeks of being background noise. He can’t make himself say anything, just swallowing convulsively as Hotch’s eyes burn into him with their misery.

“C’mon, let’s get going,” Hotch says to no one in particular, and then he’s striding forward into the mess of SWAT guys, shrugging into his FBI-emblazoned Kevlar.

Reid watches him go and thinks, _maybe I don’t know you at all…_ , but Emily is next to him before he can spiral down into that particular desolation, tugging him along.

“C’mon, Genius. Let’s bag this jerk and get outta here.”

\----- 

Someone must have tipped off Marquez that they were coming. He’s not at home, his department vehicle GPS has been disabled, and his phone is off. Even Garcia can’t find him with all her skills and every government satellite she has at her disposal.

“I’m not happy about this,” she says with both sincerity and determination from Hotch’s cell. “I don’t like being the weak link in our crimefighting chain.”

“You aren’t,” Hotch says immediately.

“Still. He shouldn’t be able to hide so easily…”

“He’s a cop, Penelope,” Emily soothes. “Occasionally we’re smart.”

“If he’d put half as much care into his crimes as he does evading them…” Reid mutters under his breath, but Emily hears him and smirks.

“Keep looking, Garcia,” Hotch adds.

“Will do, sir. He can’t hide from me. It’s a digital age, and I am Queen. You’re all just worker ants in my colony. Uh… no offense, sir…”

Hotch chuckles. _At least someone can still make him do that_ , Reid thinks to himself viciously. Then Hotch signs off and pockets his phone. He turns to look at Reid and Emily in the backseat of the Las Cruces tactical vehicle.

“What’s next?” Emily muses aloud. “Where would he go?”

“We don’t know enough about him,” Reid says, gaze getting distant as he tries to remember personal information about the detective. Unlike Strickland, Reid finds that he has no empathic insight into Marquez, and though that’s inconvenient, he’s not sorry about it. “We need more understanding about his life, his habits, his relationships…”

“Evidence collection from his house will help,” Hotch murmurs, nodding his head next to the Las Cruces officer driving them back to the station. “Once it’s been tagged and logged it’ll be transferred to the Homicide Division.”

Reid nods his approval absently. They found a rough workspace in a shed on his property. It wasn’t big enough to keep two people captive, but there were tools and appliances, and a hell of a lot of sawdust. If forensics matches the tools to the screw heads, or the sawdust to the pine coffins, it will be game over for Marquez.

“For now, we’re going to dig into his history with the department, talk to his colleagues and see what we can get from that,” Hotch continues.

“Is that wise?” Emily asks softly, her eyes flicking to the officer driving and then back to Hotch. Hotch’s gaze acknowledges her concern, but he nods anyway.

“We’re bound to get some resistance, yes. But he murdered two people in cold blood. I think we’ll find more cooperation than we expect. And we have the Chief of Detectives backing us up on this.”

Emily makes an unhappy noise, but the officer pulls into the PD parking lot almost at the same time, so she puts on her game face instead. The officer parks the van and they all get out and stretch after their uncomfortable and fruitless road trip. Hotch and Reid strip off their vests and shrug back into their jackets, Emily scrolls through her messages while she waits on them. Then they all troop up the stairs to the main entry.

“Wanna order something?” Emily asks. “I’m starving.”

“Me too,” adds Reid.

“Okay,” Hotch nods and then raises a finger in warning. “But nothing with beans, okay? It’s gonna be a long day.”

Emily chuckles and Reid rolls his eyes to himself. Hotch reaches the door and then does something he hasn’t done since before Reid took his forced vacation: he holds the door and gestures for Reid to go through first. A sorta of gentle wave of his hand like he’s presenting Reid to royalty, and a slight nod of his head in deference. It seems automatic, and Reid sees the moment when Hotch catches himself but keeps the door open anyway – like he’s slipped up and is trying to cover it.

_You lead and I’ll follow._

Reid is confused and now inconveniently blushing. Hotch’s unpredictable manner keeps throwing him off. Just when he’s made up his mind to put in his transfer papers, Hotch pulls something like this door crap from out of nowhere and sets him off into ‘what if’ land again. It undercuts Reid’s resolve at the worst moments and distracts him from what he should be doing.

Someone growls, “I told you we didn’t need you.”

Reid looks up and stares directly at the muzzle of a Glock 9. His whole body just _stops_ \- his breath, his pulse, his thought process. For a split-second he wonders where they are because they’re supposed to be in a police station, but Marquez is pointing a gun at him. Then it hits him: _Marquez must have a lot more allies than we thought._

Then he thinks about Emily and Hotch behind him. _Shit. We’re all dead now._

Then the station entryway just erupts.

A shot cracks the air at the same moment Reid is hit so hard he doesn’t have time to get his hands out to prevent his face from hitting the floor. Then there are four quick gunshots and a lot of shouting. Reid’s face feels like it’s broken, his chin is on fire. For a blinding moment, all he can do is lie there in painful disorientation. Then his instincts kick in and he curls, draws his .38 and looks for movement to aim at.

Everyone is yelling. Emily’s in there somewhere, higher than the frightened aggression of the rest. _Good_ , he thinks. _If she can yell then she’s alive._ Someone else yells, “call Emergency Services, now!”, but mostly it’s just a growling chorus of “put your guns down!” Reid’s vision starts to come back into focus and he sees Emily standing over him, eyes fierce and teeth bared as she sweeps her service weapon at a bunch of uniformed and plain clothes PD officers, some with their guns out and others confused and agitated. There are more guns behind her – other PD drones from the house raid they were on – and they are also aiming at their colleagues, which is adding to the confusion. Reid’s head snaps to the side and sees Marquez on the ground, eyes sightless, a wound to his forehead and chest leaking down to stain the crappy entryway carpet. At Marquez’s feet is Hotch, crumpled oddly and not moving.

Reid abandons his gun and crawls to Hotch, the drama around him turned off like a light. All he sees is Hotch lying there, creases marring the perfect lines of his suit.

“Hotch! Hotch!”

Reid reaches him, turning him until he rolls onto his back. He flops like a beached jellyfish, and his shirt is soaked with the blood flowing from his chest wound.

“Fuck! No, no, nonononono… HOTCH!”

Reid presses his hands down on the wound and Hotch’s blood immediately seeps through his fingers. It’s just pumping so fast, it’s everywhere… Reid presses harder until Hotch groans from it, and a second later his eyes flicker open and then shut again.

“I need paramedics now!” he screams, not knowing or caring if he’s about to be shot himself. “Agent down!”

His voice makes Hotch’s eyelids flicker again, and then Reid leans over him, hard against the wound, knowing that it hurts him but it’s also giving him precious seconds.

“Hotch, stay here. Stay right here with me…”

His eyes open and he looks up at Reid. Pain creases the lines of his face, but there’s recognition in his eyes too.

“What did you do?” Reid whispers angrily, as the shaking takes hold again and tears distort his sight. “You took what was meant for me, didn’t you?”

Hotch had hit him like a linebacker from behind and took Marquez’s shot. Obviously.

“Why did you _do_ that?” he asks too wetly. He wants to shake Hotch, to scream at him, but he has to hold him together for as long as he can. “What is _wrong_ with you?”

The words rip out of Reid unevenly and with the vibrating anger he’s held in for too long. Hotch is going to die for him, because of him. He didn’t even hesitate. He didn’t think about Jack. Reid tears his eyes away from Hotch for a moment to see his bloody hands holding Hotch’s life to his chest, and a sob rips out of him, terrible and loud.

“Why, Aaron, why…”

This is going to end him. The guilt of letting Hotch die for him will tear his life apart. In that instant, he fervently wishes he were bleeding out instead. It will be faster than the downfall that’s ahead of him from this.

“Please…” he whispers, shaking horribly, not knowing who he’s begging from. His eyes flick back to Hotch’s face, and he’s still conscious. Reid recognizes the intent stare even through the kaleidoscope of tears. “Aaron, _please_ …” 

Hotch’s eyes close and tighten as if he’s in pain, and Reid is sure he’s about to lose him.

“Where are the fucking paramedics?!” Reid bellows with a surge of irrational hate. Then Emily is next to his ear; he can feel her hand on his shoulder.

“They’re five minutes out. Hold on, Spencer.”

She sounds scared.

Reid’s eyes are fixed on Hotch’s. He finally opens them again, but it feels like it takes hours. His gaze is glassy, and then he focuses again, recognition in their dark depths almost like a plea.

“Aaron…” Reid whispers like he’s running out of air. “Please don’t leave me here…”

Hotch’s face creases like he’s trying to scream. A tear slips from one eye and runs down until it’s lost in his sideburns. Then his mouth moves but there’s no sound, just wet choking and a terrible gasp as he coughs blood all over himself.

“Oh fuck….” Reid keeps one hand on Hotch’s chest wound and tries to wipe away the blood from his mouth with the other. “Don’t do it… don’t you do this…”

_Don’t die. Please._

Hotch’s mouth keeps moving but nothing comes of it but more blood. He gets more agitated as he repeats whatever he’s trying to say.

“Stop… hold still… for the love of God, Aaron…” Reid dips his face so that he’s directly above Hotch’s, their lips almost brushing as he tells him to lie still. Reid’s tears fall onto Hotch’s cheeks and smear his blood even more. “If you die, I will never forgive you for this. Never. Do you hear me?”

Their lips touch accidentally, and he tastes Hotch’s blood. For a moment, he’s too shocked by the sensation to recognize it. Then Hotch’s lips move under his, silently forming the two syllables of his name: _Spencer_. After that, he goes alarmingly still, and Reid can’t feel him struggle for breath anymore.

“No,” he whispers, pulling back enough to see Hotch’s face. His eyes are closed, and the lines around his eyes and mouth have smoothed out as if he’s sleeping. His mouth is bright with blood, but he seems calm, almost serene. Reid instinctively presses harder against his chest, but Hotch doesn’t react, and under his hands, Reid can’t feel Hotch’s heartbeat.

“Aaron?”

Reid can’t see anymore; everything is blurry and fractured. His face is wet and he’s remotely aware that he’s just whispering Hotch’s name over and over. He doesn’t care. He’s alone in this delicate bubble of a moment where he’s about to lose the person he loves, and he can’t do anything but chant his name…

Fingers dig into his shoulder and the pain bursts the final solitary moment he’ll share with Hotch.

“Spencer… Spencer…” Emily’s voice is as insistent in his ear as her fingers are on his shoulder. “Is he…”

Reid shakes his head miserably, mouth tight. New tears blind him again and the bloody mess of Hotch becomes blurry like an Impressionist painting.

_I don’t know… I can’t say the words… don’t make me say them…_

“The paramedics are here,” Emily whispers more urgently, and then her hands are pulling at his, pulling him away. And he fights back fiercely.

“No!”

“Let him go, Spencer. The paramedics need to get at him.”

“NO!”

But he’s bulled back, ripped away from that wet, warm body with the sleeping face. He struggles and whines, but Emily encompasses him, both reassuring and restrictive as she lifts and maneuvers him away. She holds him tightly, whispering soothing things he doesn’t hear as the first responder team descends with their med kits, roughly handling him as they assess the damage. In the process, Marquez’s body is shoved aside to make room, and it’s the first moment Reid realizes he’s dead.

“Marquez…” Reid mumbles wetly, unable to put together anything more. Emily’s hands move across his back as she holds him.

“I got him,” she whispers. He waits, paralyzed by the moments he’s missed that are suddenly fast-forwarding in his mind to collapse into the present.

“How are we not… all dead?”

“Luck.” Emily squeezes him so hard it hurts. The word came out wet and tiny, and he wraps his arms around her for the first time. She buries her head against his neck, and he can feel her panicked breathing. “He’ll be okay,” she breathes. 

Reid’s blurry vision swims down to the man the paramedics are muscling onto a backboard while yelling orders at each other. He’s still, in a pool of blood, and his expression hasn’t changed: calm and peaceful, his lips scarlet as if he’s been kissed by Death itself.

“How?” Reid chokes out, and Emily holds him as tight as she can. 

“He just will,” she huffs roughly, as if the force of the words will make them true.

But Reid just sobs quietly against her shoulder because he doesn’t believe her. Not for an instant. And inside his head the _AaronAaronAaron_ has been replaced by _he’s dead… oh my God, he’s dead…_


	9. The Cure

Reid has had a fear of hospitals since childhood. It’s a well-founded fear based on experience, and no amount of rationalizing will calm his pulse when he walks into one, or worse yet, wakes up in one. Yet, he finds himself spending a lot of time in them both professionally and personally, so he’s developed a really good game face for those occasions. But today his game face has failed him. 

He’s in a single-occupancy room that smells of bleach and rubber, and it has a muffled silence to it even though machines are beeping and whirring softly in the background. Beyond the room’s door is a cacophony of anxiety, technology, and speed as the ward continues with its own battle between life and death - _other_ lives and deaths. Not the one in this room though. Here it’s just Reid, still wearing the same blood-stained clothes, and Hotch lying face up under a thin sheet with wires attached to him that are meant to convince others that he’s not as bad off as he looks. He died in the ambulance, but the paramedics brought him back. Everyone keeps saying he was lucky the hospital was so close to the police station. He made it through surgery, which surprised a lot of people. Then the doctors said it would be a long process, but he’d recover.

But somehow, none of this has made the slightest dent in Reid’s fear. He’s still back in the PD entryway bent over the only person he’s ever loved and watching him die. For him. After all the dodging and weaving they’ve done, after the circular conversations and the cold silences, Hotch stepped in and took a bullet with Reid’s name on it. He decided in a split-second, more instinct than a choice. And because of that, Reid’s grief has turned to anger, and his anger has turned to action.

He sits and he waits in the uncomfortable moulded plastic chair beside the bed. He won’t leave until Hotch wakes up – he told everyone that and then gave them the harshest glare he could conjure to back it up. Wisely, they’ve let him have his way, though he knows they are circling Hotch’s room. He can almost feel them, like moons in his orbit. Emily took one look at him and blanched. Then she leaned in and whispered so only he could hear.

“Whatever you’re going to tell him, say it without vengeance if you can.”

But as he sits in the gloomy room and waits, he doesn’t know how his words will come out. He really doesn’t.

He waits and waits. He’s lost track of time and the lighting in the hospital never seems to change. His stomach growls, and later on, aches, so he’s probably been there more than a day. His eyes sting from dried tears and fatigue, but he can’t make himself sleep, not even to nap. Nurses have asked him to leave, but he ignores them, rooted to his seat beside the bed, silent and purposeful. He just watches as Hotch lies there and slowly makes his way through the anesthesia and pain medication up to the surface of consciousness. 

The heartrate monitor shows an increase in pulse, and Reid watches the numbers fluctuate like he’s going to fight them. A few minutes later, Hotch takes a deeper breath and his eyelids flutter. Reid’s whole body becomes tense, his pulse pounding in his throat despite his exhaustion. Hotch takes a few more substantial breaths and opens his eyes, rolling his head on the pillow as he tries to figure out where he is.

“Aaron,” Reid calls out simply, drawing Hotch’s gaze to his. 

Hotch’s eyes widen as he recognizes him and then he smiles, like they’ve been apart for years and suddenly reunited. That smile damages something in Reid – it literally makes him curl back in his chair to get away from the pain it evokes in him. The heartrate monitor picks up speed a little, and Reid lets Hotch take in the details of the room. He notices the moment Hotch sees the red-brown stains crusted along the folded cuffs of Reid’s shirt. Something changes in Hotch’s face and Reid knows, _he remembers it now_.

“How… long?” Hotch rasps and then winces. Reid leans forward and offers him a cup of water from the bedside with a straw. Hotch slips gingerly and settles with a painful sigh afterwards.

“I’m not sure,” Reid mumbles as he sets the cup down again. “Two days maybe.”

“Marquez?”

“Dead.”

Hotch stares at Reid for a long moment. “Good.”

He keeps staring. It’s well beyond being drowsy or confused. In fact, it feels the opposite – it’s extremely focused and intentional. “I’m glad you’re all right,” he croaks eventually.

Reid huffs as if it’s humorous, but it isn’t. “I’m really not ‘all right’…”

Hotch’s stare becomes confused and worried. Reid sits back in his chair and straightens his shoulders.

_…try to do it without vengeance if you can…_

“I can’t do this anymore,” he says quietly but clearly. “I can’t do whatever it is we’re doing to each other, and I can’t watch you sacrificing yourself to this job over and over and over.”

He takes a deep breath in and his chest shudders from it. Hotch notices it but says nothing. He seems… desolate. Like an expanse of sun-seared desert, flat and motionless from one horizon to the other.

“I won’t sit in hospital rooms like this anymore waiting to find out if you’ll live or die. I won’t stand over your grave when your luck runs out.” The words catch wetly in his throat and he has to clear them away before he can continue. “I won’t enable this… _relationship_ you have with your job, Aaron. You know how unhealthy it is, but you keep going back to it, you keep sacrificing yourself for it. It’s all you seem to care about. I don’t… I’ll never understand that. I don’t know why you think it’s more important than yourself.”

“Spencer…” Hotch rasps.

Reid looks him in the eye and frowns. “I’ve given my notice at the Bureau. Not a transfer. I’m leaving.”

He takes another breath, but the rest comes out less coherently. “After this case… getting inside Strickland’s head… this unworkable gap between us… and now, with you like _this_ …” Reid sighs and makes an indecisive gesture towards Hotch, unsure if it’s for him physically or psychologically. “I don’t like who I’m becoming. So, I’m getting out, like you suggested.”

Hotch just blinks at him, his mouth hanging open as if caught between thoughts. Reid watches him ruthlessly for any kind of reaction, but nothing happens. He turns his face away after a long silence and tries to hide how his heart just shrivels inside him. _He can’t even muster the effort to argue with me…_

“I’m not going to tell you what to do but… you have a son, Aaron. You stepped into gunfire because you thought it was your job. You used our friendship to… justify the importance of your actions. You didn’t think about Jack, and you didn’t think about the guilt you’d burden me with if you’d died. You never consider the hurt you cause while you’re busy trying to be noble.”

_You never thought about how passively enabling my affection would damage me…_

He’s shaking now. His hand grips the cheap chair in a wasted effort to hide it. “It’s selfish, Aaron, and it’ll kill you in the end.” He finally looks back and sees Hotch, wide-eyed and pale, stunned down to the very marrow of his bones. “Your inertia is dragging you away from everything you claim to want. And it doesn’t matter how much anyone cares for you…” Reid swallows hard, blinking too much. “You’re the only person who can pull yourself out of it.”

Reid blinks back his tears and leans forward in his chair. _No vengeance, just truth._

“You have _a son_ ,” he reiterates, and doesn’t say, _and someone who loves you too much to watch you self-destruct_. “I don’t like who I see in the mirror anymore, so I’m going to change that. _You_ haven’t liked yourself in a long time. What will it take to make you want to change?”

Hotch seems to sink deeper into the pillow behind him as he stares in disbelief at Reid. Eventually, he nods his head slightly and says, “I understand”. It comes out softly and tentatively, like a caress, and he blinks back his own glassiness in the process. He chokes awkwardly and his heartrate monitor beeps in warning of his raised pulse.

“I… never meant for any of this to happen,” he adds quietly. “I never wanted…”

Hotch hesitates, his stare becoming unfocused as he goes inward. Then he takes a sudden, deep breath, wincing at the pain it causes, before his eyes find Reid once more. Reid wonders if he’s battling his ‘noble’ impulses again, but Hotch just says, “I’ll… miss you. Profoundly.”

Reid clamps his mouth shut so he doesn’t say something stupid. Or starts blubbering. Because they both know that Reid’s resignation is also the end of their friendship. It has to be otherwise nothing changes. This is not the moment to hope for some sort of emotional catharsis that might alter the situation. Reid stands and his joints ache from the time he’s spent crumpled in that crappy chair waiting to do this: to walk away. He hisses a little and pulls his jacket from the chair back and shrugs into it. It feels like a hundred pounds across his neck and shoulders.

_I’ll miss you every day. I… can’t believe it’s over…_

He turns and looks at Hotch one last time, but he can’t make his mouth work. He just stares in silence for too long, letting their quiet swallow up all the words that might have made a difference along the way. Then Reid shrugs, shoves his hands in his pockets to hide the bloody cuffs, and walks out of the room without a word.

\---- 

It’s been a long road to get to this point, and now he’s sitting alone on his porch. It’s almost bliss. _Almost._ He’s trudged through weeks of numbing discussions with doctors, nurses, and physiotherapists. He’s been poked and prodded, had his ego humiliated by his inability to bounce back the way he used to, and he’s been humbled by the limitations of his damaged body. When he was finally released from hospital, he faced another gauntlet of home nurses, outpatient therapists, and the requisite Bureau psychiatric evaluations. And there was Jack and Jessica to be brave for, and the team to soothe. No time for him at all. No time to be alone and sink into the grief of his profound loss. Not until now. 

There’s almost relief in it – the freedom to wallow, to regret, and to rehash his mistakes in privacy where no one can witness his pain. It’s not just the inevitable new layer of PTSD to add to the pile, or the shame at cutting everyone out from discovering how he _feels_ about it. And it’s not about how he’s once again failed to protect the ones he cares for, or failed to care in the _correct way_ so he wouldn’t lose them in the first place. It’s that this fundamental defeat is lifelong and self made. He knows the culpability doesn’t lie with the job – not really – it predates the Bureau. That was just the excuse he gave Haley, and it worked so he kept using it. But deep down, he’s always known he had the choice _not to_. He can almost imagine Haley’s ironic smile from beyond the grave…

But he’s gone. Spencer’s gone. And he has no one to blame but himself.

Rossi told him when Spencer finished his required two weeks. The team gave him a going away party, and then he just… disappeared from their lives. Aaron thinks that’s probably for the best, and there’s a part of him that admires Spencer’s steel in the matter. _He’s always been so much more than he seems…_ But it does nothing for the gaping hole in Aaron’s chest, both literally and figuratively. He was still laid up in hospital when it happened, and now he has no closure and no way to convince Spencer that he wasn’t _entirely_ right in his final assessment of the situation. Though Spencer hit so many nails on the head in that last, brief conversation between them that Hotch still blushes about it.

_He got me. He really pinned my personality to the wall. You can’t blame him from wanting to get as far away as possible once he figured it out…_

Aaron thinks about calling. Well, he doesn’t think about it anymore because it makes his chest hurt so much that people begin to fuss when it happens. He doesn’t need another visit to the ER. And what would he say if that happened? _Please… can you give me something for a broken heart?_ Ridiculous. But if he is being honest with himself, he doesn’t even know how to reach out now. The only number he had for Spencer was a Bureau-issued phone which he returned when he resigned. The same thing with his email address. Aaron knows where he lives, but he still can’t drive and he’s not about to ask someone to chauffeur him to an ex-employee’s residence for some sort of doomed request for reconciliation. Also ridiculous.

_Perhaps I never really took the time to know him. I mean, I felt… I feel… But how much could I have really known of him if he can slip away so easily?_

He spends a lot of time on his porch questioning the legitimacy of what he feels. The doubt is unacceptable to him, especially when it seemed _so real_ for so long. But is he actually just hopelessly lonely? Is he so fundamentally unhappy with his life that clinging to the idea of someone brighter and more exciting became an escape for him? What if what he thought was a powerful emotional response was just… envy, or covetousness? In that light, his need to pursue what he’s lost is pathological, not emotional.

He growls at himself and it makes his surgical scar hurt, so he rubs it to gentle away the pain he’s become accustomed to while sipping his lemonade. He knows he can’t go on this way, can’t keep brooding about it. It’s not fair to Jack and Jessica, or to the team. He has to get his head out of his ass and let it go, move on. He’s always been good at that: he moved on from Haley, and Elle, and Strauss, and Gideon… And he really doesn’t have choice about it since Spencer’s already done that, apparently.

“You were never good at connecting anyway,” he grumbles to himself as a neighbor walks by and offers him a friendly wave that he returns without thought or feeling. 

Always on display, always fronting the veneer of a calm, capable, respectable man. Always reshaping himself to whatever anyone else needs. Well, now Jack needs a father and the team needs its leader. Those are costumes he wears well, and there’s importance in being needed. He can live with that; the rest doesn’t matter. He can hide away his hurt where no one will ever see it. Just like always.

He sinks a little deeper into his chair and sighs, watching the cars in the street and letting the afternoon tick by slowly. The sun moves overhead, and he gets lost in watching the changing patterns it dapples on the lawn through the trees. Something about it triggers an old, nostalgic ache in him that he can’t quite place, the memory having been long forgotten. _It’s probably a sign of how old you’ve suddenly gotten_ , he says to himself, but still, he smiles a little at the ache.

“Aaron.”

He starts in his seat, lulled by the lazy afternoon and his navel-gazing, and he winces as his chest complains. But then his breath leaves him when he finds Spencer on his porch, clinging close to a pillar by the front steps as if afraid to be seen. There’s a casualness to him; mismatched colors, rundown sneakers, and no jacket or tie, even if a thin layer of formality is maintained by a dark vest that pulls everything together. But the casualness is a disguise, Aaron is sure of it. Spencer’s expression is almost startled, and his lips are pinched thin. His whole body radiates suppressed energy, and Aaron is immediately focused on it. The focus leads him away from how his heart is unsafely racing, and how quickly his earlier determination dissolves in the presence of his unexpected guest.

“Reid,” he croaks and can’t stop himself from smiling.

_Stop smiling, you idiot. He’s not here to be social. Read his expression, for chrissakes…_

Aaron coughs and waves his hand to an empty chair next to him. “Have a seat. Nice of you to visit…”

Spencer shuffles over, shoulders hunched so his hair falls into his eyes. Aaron’s always wanted to brush his hair away when that happens. Always…

“Hi… ummm, hi.” Spencer slumps into the porch chair and laces his fingers together nervously. Then he looks up through that damned hair and puts on a quiet smile. He probably has no clue how much that smile has always victimized Aaron. “Sorry I didn’t give you a head’s up I was coming. Are Jess and Jack around?”

“No,” Aaron clears his throat to get a grip on himself. “Jack’s at Lucien’s for a playdate and sleepover, which means Jess gets some much-needed time off. I told her to have some fun today, she needn’t fuss over me. I’m not that much of an invalid.” He smiles and waits but Spencer does nothing but stare. “It’s the first time I’ve really been alone in over a month, actually.”

Spencer nods absently, his stare suddenly becoming unfocused and leaving Aaron on his own again. He can’t bear that – not when Spencer’s sudden appearance has given him a reprieve from the pointless wallowing he’d been doing before. He’s not ready to go back to that just yet. He leans as far forward as he can without aggravating his chest wound.

“It’s really great to see you,” he murmurs and laces his fingers together too. It’s safer that way. He’s not going to mention that he’s missed him every day, every hour since that loaded conversation at the hospital. And he’s not going to say how much it hurts that Spencer waited almost five weeks before checking up on him.

Spencer’s eyes find Aaron’s again, and color warms his face. “Yeah, it’s good to see you too. I wanted to come sooner… but I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

He glances away, and Aaron wants to ask _why_ is wasn’t a good idea, but Spencer carries on before he can get the words out.

“And I’m not really here for a social call anyway, so…”

“Oh, really? Why are you here then?”

Spencer takes a deep breath and straightens his spine, as if summoning all his energy to focus on his words. Every molecule of Aaron is at attention instantly.

“I’ll just get to it. It won’t make it any easier if I dawdle…” It’s almost like he’s is talking to himself, building up the nerve to do something devastating. Aaron has seen him like this before, heading into a difficult interrogation or negotiating in the field. But it’s never been aimed at him. Until now.

Spencer huffs and then stares Aaron down. “Come with me.”

Aaron blinks and waits for more. When nothing happens, his mind churns through those three words to figure out what he’s missed. “Come with you where?”

Spencer shakes his head. “No, not to a place. I mean, leave the Bureau. Quit. Come with me _that way_.”

And Aaron is left speechless. Not silent yet internally processing – but literally speechless and devoid of rational thought. For an instant, he’s like an empty glass, and then a second later he’s full to the brim with desperation and longing and wild, irrational hope. But Spencer just soldiers on, eyes flicking up and away nervously.

“Listen… I’m in love with you. Still. I don’t think that’s a secret to you. And I also know you’re just a friend, and that’s why it’s taken me so long to seek you out and say this because I don’t want my message to be misconstrued. By either me or you.”

“Mis… misconstrued?” Aaron can barely get the word out.

Spencer nods once. “I don’t want you to think I’m saying this out of some misguided attempt to make you mine. I didn’t want _me_ to think that either, so, you know… I spent a lot of time overthinking this and procrastinating…”

He gives Aaron a brief, bashful smile and then lets it drop like he’s ashamed it got away from him. And Aaron’s pulse hammers him so hard he nearly chokes.

“But the thing is… it’s sorta irrelevant if I’m in love with you or not. I’d still be here asking you to quit if I wasn’t. Because, above all else, I’m your friend and friends look out for one another. It’s up to us to tell each other the hard truths, and the truth is this job is killing you, Aaron.”

Spencer lets that statement settle before taking another breath and continuing past Aaron’s silence.

“I don’t know why this job has become your worth in your mind’s eye, and I’m not optimistic that I can drag you away from it when both Haley and Jack have failed…”

That thought hits Aaron hard right between the eyes. He blinks and shakes his head as if shrugging off a punch. Maybe that was Spencer’s intention because he’s right: neither the loss of Haley nor his growing distance from Jack have been enough to incite change in him.

“But I can’t walk away and leave you to personally disintegrate in the bizarre co-dependency you have with the job, Aaron. I have to try – I have to fight for you. And it’s because I love you and it also isn’t. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but… I can’t go through my life knowing that I gave up on my best friend because I was worried about how you’d perceive it, or I was afraid I’d fail. I decided I’d rather try and fail, or embarrass myself, and know that I did everything I could to save you.”

Spencer stares at him hard for a few tortured seconds.

“There’s more to you than this,” he whispers. “There’s so much more you could be. Please, Aaron. Don’t relegate yourself to the quiet misery you’ve become accustomed to. Don’t be a bit player in your own life. You’re worth more – worth the effort to be understood. The job has whittled away at you…” Spencer winces as if the words physically hurt him. “…convinced you that it’s the only thing about you that matters… Well, _everything_ about you matters. Your silences, your worry, your awkward humor, your quiet care – all of it. Every inch of you is unique and irreplaceable, and none of it should be deemed expendable, least of all by you. So, stop committing this egregious act of self-violence. Stop it.”

He shakes for a moment, making all of him vibrate from his shoes to the edges of his tangles. 

“You’re my friend. I look up to you, and I love you. But I’m just one person. There are plenty of others who feel the same way, Aaron, I promise you. There’s so much life left for you to live if you’re willing to let go of false expectations, guilt and duty. Maybe you’ll even find someone to share your silences with, like you once said… Isn’t that worth the risk of the unknown?”

Aaron feels like his heart is about to explode. _I want to share my silences with you, like we once did…_

Spencer carries on, oblivious. “I mean, if I can walk away, surely you can. You know I’m not a brave man, Aaron, and I won’t tell you the past month has been easy for me. But I feel like I’m getting better… stronger. More _me._ And I thought… well… I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t try to show you it could work for you as well. And since I’m not as angry as I was in Las Cruces, I stirred up some courage and decided to come here and make one last pitch.”

His brow creases as he pleads his case and Aaron can barely breathe, barely hear his words. How has he arrived here, at this perfect moment when he’s being offered a do-over from the only guy who matters? How is this possible when he was certain he was in Reid’s rear view mirror for good? His pulse is making him lightheaded and his chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself, and there’s a rising sensation in him that he might pass out, or worse. And suddenly, he finds a pocket of sane energy – a reserve locked under glass stenciled with the warning, _break in case of emergency_ …

“Spencer,” he gulps, and hopes he isn’t sweating. He suddenly feels too hot to bear. “There’s something about me I haven’t told you.”

Spencer looks worried, lines winking around his eyes and with his mouth hanging open in surprise, like he’s bracing for bad news. Aaron reaches out and gently brushes his fingers across Spencer’s jaw. And then his eyes widen in disbelief. But Aaron ignores that, pulls him in, and goes for broke. _This is an emergency._

When his lips close over Spencer’s stunned ones, his heart stabs out a handful of violent, irregular beats and he suddenly thinks, _it’s okay – this is a fine way to go if it’s gonna happen_. But he doesn’t drop dead on the spot, or pass out, or have a stroke. Instead, he kisses gently, stroking the line of that sharp jaw, furnishing both movements with the awe and quiet joy he’d always imagined he’d feel if it ever actually happened. He pulls back softly and reconnects, not prepared to face the consequences of it _just_ yet. Spencer’s lips match his, the same pressure, the same soft yielding, and his breath stutters across Aaron’s mouth when he finally ends it. Aaron keeps his eyes closed, leaning against Spencer’s forehead and anchored by his hand along his jaw. He’s gasping like he’s been running for miles, and the shaking begins as a sliver of fear runs through him.

“Aaron,” Spencer mouths. 

Then his lips close over Aaron’s again, but surer and more demanding. Fingers tentatively brush Aaron’s jaw in return, and then he’s cupped on both sides as Spencer invites him in. He moans softly when they slot together, slipping and shifting as they both try to go deeper. It seems like he’s imagined this forever, in a thousand different ways, but none of those imaginings told him how hot Spencer’s skin would feel against his, how urgent his lips would be in return. He never imagined how Spencer would taste, or the quiet sounds they’d make as they came apart and then eagerly reconnected, or how strong Spencer’s grip would be on him. He’s waited so long and wanted it so much and never, ever thought he’d have it… He runs out of air, feels woozy and regretfully backs away with a soft slip so he can gulp down some oxygen.

Now they’re both leaning hard into each other’s forehead, hands holding the other’s face like they’re afraid they’ll disappear. Aaron’s eyes flick open as he breathes, and Spencer’s cheeks are blurry scarlet in the shadowed closeness they’ve made together, and he’s breathing hard too.

“How… how long?” Spencer whispers almost disbelievingly. 

And that’s the question Aaron is afraid of. Well, one of them anyway. Because the answer won’t make Spencer happy.

“A long time. So long…” Aaron admits quietly, stroking Spencer’s jaw to soothe the sting of it. “Well before you confessed to me in my office.”

Spencer pulls back, as Aaron knew he would. His expression is confused, halfway between anger and devastation. But Aaron is prepared.

“You want to know why now, don’t you?” he says calmly.

“Yes,” Spencer gulps, his cheeks getting redder. Aaron nods slowly.

“There were many reasons I never said anything, not the least of which is that I have difficulty articulating how I feel…” He pauses to let that sink in and sees when Spencer’s expression shifts slightly in acknowledgement of that fact. “But when it comes right down to it, what kept me silent was that we’re friends, it would be professionally problematic, and that you never showed any inclination in that direction.”

Spencer just blinks at him. Aaron shrugs, feeling new heat rising along his cheeks.

“You’ve never shown much interest in romantic relationships, period, Spencer. And I assumed you were heterosexual-”

“Fine. Granted…” Spencer shakes away the observation and then fixes Aaron with a frightening stare. “But _after_ I told you how I felt, you still said nothing…”

Aaron smiles and knows it’s a sad one by how Spencer’s expression changes from aggravated to anxious.

“You know,” Aaron starts softly. “That day in my office… for about thirty seconds, I was the happiest I’ve been since Jack was born.” His smile gets bigger remembering the moment. “I mean… I just _couldn’t_ believe my luck. The odds that you might ever feel the way I did were so, so slim.”

“But… you told me it would go away,” Spencer interrupts. “You could’ve said something then. All you had to do was _say something._ ”

Aaron nods as his smile fades, and he sighs. “You forget how you were that day. Almost as soon as you confessed, you told me how ashamed you were. You were angry and disappointed in your feelings. You kept begging me to forgive you. You wanted it to stop.” 

Aaron pauses and just stares as that day begins to take shape in Spencer’s mind again. His gaze focuses on the past, and a numb sort of shock realigns his features. Then, with a devastating sense of timing, Aaron murmurs, “How could I tell you after all of that? It wasn’t something you wanted…”

Spencer’s gaze returns to Aaron and it gets watery. “Aaron…” he whispers miserably. Aaron just waves it off.

“Don’t. You did nothing wrong. You had no idea how I felt.”

“But that… I must’ve… hurt you.”

“Yes,” says Aaron quietly and quickly. “But you didn’t do it purposefully. And frankly, at the time I strongly believed your infatuation was temporary, so adding my feelings into the mix would’ve complicated matters. We both stood a chance of really getting hurt, and I decided that was an unnecessary risk to take. Not when I could take on that weight alone.”

Spencer makes an aggravated growl. “That’s part of a larger problem right there…”

“I know,” Aaron whispers and nods, because he’s not blind to his own failings. Not really. Then he reaches for Spencer’s hand and cups it in both of his, like treasure. “But I had no idea what you felt was… all this.”

“Well, neither did I,” Spencer murmurs, eyes riveted to Aaron’s hands around his. Aaron can feel them shaking. Or maybe he’s the one who’s shaking. It takes a while but eventually Spencer looks him in the eye again. “All the times between then and now you could’ve told me… when it was obviously more than I thought… you should’ve _told me_ , Aaron.”

“I know,” Aaron rasps wetly, and then Spencer’s free hand is on his neck pulling him in for another kiss. They slip against each other and Spencer’s tongue flirts with the crest of Aaron’s lower lip. It sets loose a whimper of regret – that he could’ve had so much more sooner if he’d been less afraid. 

“I was scared,” he whispers when they come apart. “I’ve been scared for a long time. Always afraid of wanting the way I do. Afraid of the rejection I always thought was just a moment away, afraid of being misunderstood… because people don’t really see me…”

His eyes are closed, and Spencer is brushing kisses up his cheeks, along his temple, the corners of his eyes. Warm breath and reassurance that Aaron has been wrong about who he is for too long.

“I see you, Aaron,” Spencer whispers against his ear and then kisses the spot below it as Aaron shivers. “Sometimes the world narrows to just you, and I can’t look away. You’re this brilliant, amazing thing… you’re my _very favorite thing_ …”

Aaron pulls a hand free and yanks Spencer into a brutal kiss that crushes the wet, _I love you_ between them before Aaron can really get it out. Spencer goes willingly, sucking and nipping and scraping so eagerly that Aaron wonders if it’s all new to him and he’s trying it out, or whether he just knows what he likes. When Spencer’s tongue curls around his, and Aaron feels weightless with how deep the kiss is, he experiences a luminous moment of pure joy.

_He loves me. He thinks I’m worth a fight… I’m worth it…_

They’re a little out of control, carried away by the misunderstandings and drunk off the sudden clarity between them. Spencer grabs Aaron’s shirt and tries to move him closer. Their knees knock and then crack solidly against the edge of one another’s chair. Spencer makes a frustrated noise and pulls Aaron by the neck at an odd angle which sets his surgical wound stinging, and Aaron leaps back with a loud hiss and a hand over the scar as if it’ll open again.

“Ow,” he groans, and is torn between the pain and his desire to get Spencer wrapped around him again. His heart is hammering dangerously, and he begins to pant. That, more than anything, resurrects his reason. He is not a well man, and he won’t let anything get in the way of being with Spencer now, especially not another hospital visit.

“Sorry! I’m sorry…” Spencer looks terrified.

“It’s okay,” Aaron winces as he tries to calm them both. “I forgot to be careful, that’s all. I’m still recovering.”

“I know, I know…”

“But you’re very distracting,” Aaron gives him a smirk as he rubs the sting out of his chest. “Made me feel healthier. And possibly younger…”

“You’re not that old,” Spencer rolls his eyes, but seems less terrified. Aaron smiles and thanks him as his cheeks heat again. Then he can’t stop staring at him with his expressive eyes and crazy tangles and his ever-changing expressions.

“I want to be with you, Spencer,” he says without warning. It’s an obvious statement, but he feels it’s necessary to be a little more obvious, considering his track record. “I want us to be an _us_. Just as soon as I’m well enough to handle the cardiac peril you seem to bring out in me.”

He’s aiming for a humorous deflection from his romantic impulse, but Spencer’s face gets serious as he leans in again with a formidable stare.

“If you want me, leave the Bureau,” he says with quiet steel. He knows what he’s asking, and Aaron can see that he’s not sure if he’ll get it. But he asks anyway. “I know Haley demanded the same thing, and we both remember the choice you made then. But… it has to be this way, Aaron. I won’t come in second place to the job. I won’t let you shut me out. I want all of you, not just the scraps you think are safe for me to handle. It’s either me or the Bureau, and you have to make this decision now, so I can still walk away if I have to.” 

He sits back in his chair and his mouth pinches as he waits and stares. Aaron can barely feel his breath going in and out of his body, and his wound pain is an afterthought. But his pulse is flickering along his throat, booming in his chest, screaming at his temples and wrists. He can still taste Spencer on his lips, imagines them moving around each other in a house somewhere, like it’s something they’ve always done. He can picture Spencer making breakfast for Jack, both of their hair impressively unkempt, or seeing him shuffle through a darkened bedroom, sliding under the sheets and curling up against Aaron’s back, arms looping around him as they both sigh and drift away together. It’s so prosaic, like everything he once had with Haley and then gave up on. But what he feels isn’t the dull, stifling, paper-thin coating of middle-class happiness he tried for with her. Instead, it’s contentment, warmth, understanding… it’s _coming home._

“Okay,” he croaks suddenly, still half lost in what could be.

Spencer’s eyebrows rocket to his hairline and his face goes pale. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Aaron nods to bolster reality for both of them. “Yes. I’ll leave the FBI.”

He lets that sentence settle; feels awe at its ramifications and how simple it was to say. Spencer continues staring as if he hasn’t heard him.

“I… uh… I don’t know what I’ll do. Or who I’ll be, but… yes. I can do that.”

“You can?” Spencer breathes. It’s obvious that he didn’t think he’d win this fight.

Aaron nods and tries for a smile. “It’s time. And I have the best reason in the world to do it.” He reaches up and strokes Spencer’s cheekbone with his thumb. “You’re amazing. Do you know how amazing you are to me? To think that you’d ever look at me the way you are now…”

His thumb drifts down and strokes Spencer’s lower lip, pressing a little the way his mouth would if he were kissing him instead.

“Aaron…”

“You’re everything I want,” Aaron whispers and blinks too much. “Thank God you didn’t walk away and let me die being a miserable, stubborn old fool…”

Spencer leans in and takes his lips with a whispered, “you’re so stupid”. Aaron closes his eyes and grins, whispering back, “says the guy who didn’t know what love was”. Then they get lost in each other again, but this time gently, and with consideration to catch their breath while pressing smiles against one another. Aaron finally touches Spencer’s hair for the first time and it’s as soft as it looks. He closes his eyes and makes a purr of satisfaction as Spencer chuckles against his throat.

“Well, I can honestly say I didn’t picture this when I got in my car to drive here…”

Aaron and Spencer’s heads whip up at the sound, and when they see Rossi leaning against the porch pillar with a Tupperware container and a mischievous look of confusion about him, they quickly shuffle apart. Rossi smirks and sidles forward, not the least put out.

“I brought you homemade cannelloni. My nonna’s recipe.” He lifts the container and places it on the table next to Aaron’s lemonade. Then he folds his arms and beams at them. “So… this is a development…”

Aaron can feel a blush scorching across his face. “Thanks for the food, Dave. That’s very kind of you.” He’s quietly hoping that Rossi will conveniently forget about the kissing. “Would you like something to drink?”

Rossi shakes his head. “You couldn’t offer me a potable enticement headier than the sight of you two finally getting your game together.”

“W-what?” Spencer squeaks.

“Christ, I thought we’d never see the day. Especially after what went down in New Mexico.” Rossi shoots Aaron a glare because he’s still angry that Aaron didn’t take the whole team. They’ve already argued about it, but Aaron’s under no illusion that the conversation is over.

“We?” Aaron wrestles some gravitas out of nowhere and decides to invoke a scowl.

“Of course, _‘we’_ , Aaron. Me, Prentiss, J.J., Penelope… all of us. I thought Prentiss was crazy when she first brought it up, but I’ll be damned if she wasn’t right after all. They’ll be no living with her now that you proved her ridiculous theory correct…”

“I’m gonna kill her…” Spencer seethes under his breath. Aaron is shocked by the heat of that statement but is immediately sidetracked about what Prentiss might have known and when.

“Listen,” Rossi leans down a little closer. “I’m a live-and-let-live kinda guy, so what you two are up to and how it’s gonna work out is none of my business, really. But I’m also a guy who’s been married four times, so it’s safe to say I have a soft spot for love. And all I’m gonna say is: you guys could certainly do a helluva lot worse, but I’m not sure you could do _better_. So don’t screw it up by being too… _you._ ”

Rossi wiggles his fingers in both of their general directions.

“I was gonna invite myself to stay for a drink or three, but I realize this is a bit of delicate moment.” Rossi smirks and Aaron frowns out of habit. “No one needs a third wheel when you’re giving each other a tonsillectomy, right?”

“Rossi!” Spencer huffs, and when Aaron looks at him, he’s almost purple.

“Dave,” he growls. Rossi just laughs.

“You boys are too much fun to razz. You might wanna work on that. Build up a thicker skin for the ribbing to come. I’m only sorry that since Reid isn’t around anymore, I won’t catch any workplace shenanigans _in flagrante_ , so to speak…”

“Honestly…” Spencer looks skyward, exasperated. Aaron sympathizes; he finds it amazing that he and Rossi have been friends for over twenty years.

“I’ll let you get back to it,” Rossi chuckles, an indulgent yet devilish twinkle in his eye making Aaron nervous. “Reheat the cannelloni at three hundred for thirty minutes.”

“Thank you,” Aaron mumbles.

“And remember, boys, beard burn can sneak up on you, and it’s a bitch,” Rossi winks.

“Go away, Rossi,” Spencer declares loudly and points, which only makes Rossi chuckle. Even Aaron has to suppress a smirk at Spencer’s adorable sense of umbrage.

“As you wish,” Rossi says, making a playful bow. Aaron watches him turn and saunter back the way he came.

“Dave, keep this to yourself for now,” he calls out quickly.

“Nah. I’m gonna tell everyone,” Rossi waves his finger and then fishes his phone out of his pocket. “Just wait until I tell Prentiss she won the pool…”

“There was… THERE WAS _ANOTHER POOL?_ ” Spencer yells, and then slouches back into his chair when it’s obvious that Rossi is ignoring him in favor of spreading this new information to everyone in his contacts list. “Goddammit, Emily…”

Aaron watches affectionately as Spencer leans back and huffs at the porch roof. “We have the worst friends.”

“I can think of worse.”

Spencer rolls his head to look at Aaron. “ _Why_ do they insist on turning my life’s decisions into wagering opportunities?”

Aarons leans closer, even though his chest complains. “Probably because they care and aren’t always good at showing it.”

“That seems to be a common problem,” Spencer mumbles. Aaron gets closer.

“And maybe because it’s an intriguing puzzle,” Aaron smiles and it gets bigger when Spencer looks back at him flustered. Aaron brushes his nose against Spencer’s, and then he skims his lips across his skin as Spencer closes his eyes and shivers. 

“You’re a little unpredictable and I’m unreadable. It was probably a compelling bet for a bunch of people who make a living off predicting behavior.” Aaron kisses him softly, smiling the whole time. “We’re a terrible gamble.”

He can feel Spencer smiling back when he takes his mouth again.

“No argument here,” he whispers.


	10. Side Effects

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is so long in coming. Life an' stuff, ya know?  
> Also, this one is sorta all over the place.

Despite the heady experience of finally getting the person he’s been pining after for years, Aaron turns out to be a less than stellar boyfriend. This both surprises and disappoints him, as he was once very good at this sort of thing. Haley had been the envy of her friends when they dated because Aaron was so attentive and romantic. But he’s sorely struggling now and feels it’s only a matter of time before Spencer gives up in frustration. 

It’s not helped by the fact that several aspects of his life have compounded to create a substantial mid-life crisis. He’s fumbling his way through a previously theoretical sexual identity with both the clumsiness of a teenager and the shame of an older man. At the same time, Jessica does not take this news well and promptly moves out of Aaron’s guest room.

“You won’t want me around when you boyfriend comes over,” she says crisply, loading the last of her things into the back of her car. “And I’m not sure I’d want to be around for that either.”

“Jess,” he pleads quietly. He’s not going to beg. But she’s family, and he can’t stand the thought that she disapproves of him. “It just happened. I haven’t been in denial my whole life… you know how much I loved Haley…”

She stares at him with the driver’s side door open. “Yes, I know you did,” she says softly, eyes averted. “And it’s not… I’m not homophobic, Aaron. I don’t care that it’s Spencer.”

“Then what _do_ you care about?”

She looks him straight in the eye and leans on the car door. “I care that it’s anyone other than me.”

Aaron is silently floored. How did he miss _that?_

“I can tell by your face that you had no idea,” Jess smirks sadly. “Honestly, I didn’t go into this arrangement with that in mind. I just wanted to help out. You were so alone, so devastated when she died…” Jess shakes the memory away and her pretend-smile falls. “It developed over time, and I… I thought it wouldn’t be such a leap. You loved her. Why wouldn’t you love me as well?”

“I do love you, Jess. You’re my sister. The only family I have left other than Jack,” Aaron chokes out, face hot at how much he’s failed her.

“Sister,” Jess huffs and rolls her eyes. “I raised your son. I put you back together again when you fell apart. I know almost as much about you as Haley did. Did you ever stop and wonder over the years _why_ I was always here for you?”

“Jess,” Aaron mumbles wetly, trying not to make a scene in his driveway. “You _are_ Jack’s mother, much more so than Haley. And I rely on you in so many ways. Maybe too many… But don’t leave us. Jack’s already been through a divorce. I don’t think he could handle losing you as well.”

His hand is on the car door and she quickly reaches out and squeezes it before shouldering into the driver’s seat. “I’m not leaving Jack, or you, really. I’m just taking care of myself as much as you two. I need distance, Aaron. My own place. So, I can figure out what I want for myself. I’ll continue to do everything I’ve always done with Jack because you’re right: he is my son.”

She stares at him as if expecting a fight, but he lets his hand fall away from the door as she closes it and starts the engine. “This’ll be good for you too, Aaron. It’ll give you the space to sort your head out. If you won’t do it for me or Jack, do it for Spencer. Your problems won’t just go away because he finally convinced you that the Bureau is bad for you.”

“I… I don’t know how to do this without you,” he gestures vaguely to the house behind him. She gives him a very pragmatic look.

“Well, figure it out then.” She shifts the car into reverse. “Tell Jack I’ll see him at school pick-up.”

So, that’s how he loses Jessica. When he recounts the scene to Spencer, he just blinks at him in shock, and Aaron’s guts curdle a little. _Don’t look at me that way – I won’t fail with you. Haley and Jess aren’t a pattern… you won’t be next, I swear to you…_

“How do I make this right with her?” he whispers instead. Spencer shakes his head as if snapping out of a trance.

“You give her the space she’s asked for,” he says quietly, evenly. “She’ll need time to deal with the disappointment she’s experiencing. Love doesn’t just fade away overnight…”

Aaron knows Spencer is reflecting on his own experience. “I never wanted to hurt her,” he says.

“I know you didn’t.” Spencer looks him in the eye. “But she’s hurt all the same. Sometimes you can put all your effort into doing the right thing and it still comes out wrong. Don’t compound that by trying to force her back into a dynamic that feels right _to you._ That’s selfish, Aaron.”

Aaron feels like he’s been verbally slapped, and it’s the second time Spencer’s accused him of being selfish. Is he? He’s never thought of himself as the kind of person who puts his needs ahead of others. But maybe that’s always been his problem…

“Jack doesn’t understand this,” he mumbles.

“I don’t know much about kids,” Spencer hedges. “But Jack’s bright. He’ll figure out how he feels about it in time.”

But Jack does not take either his aunt’s departure or the new knowledge of his father’s _boyfriend_ well. He spends a week sleeping in Jessica’s old room after she moves out, and then opts to spend hours on the phone with her each night, refusing to tell Aaron what they discuss.

 _Talk to him. He’s really upset. He’s afraid you don’t love him anymore, and he thinks that’s why I left_ , Jess texts one night and Aaron is appalled. He goes to Jack’s room and his heart sinks when Jack shoulders himself away from him under the covers, pretending to be reading a comic book instead. He sits on the edge of Jack’s bed and lays a hand gently across his shoulder.

“I know a lot of stuff is changing, buddy, and that must be scary for you. Like you don’t have any say in it.”

Jack just sighs loudly and flips the page of his comic book.

“You _do_ have a say, Jack. But that’ll only happen if you actually talk to me.”

Aaron waits for what feels like hours as Jack pretends to ignore him. Eventually, he rolls over with a frown pulling his little mouth down.

“Why did you let Aunt Jess leave?” he asks.

“Because she wanted to go, son. I wanted her to stay, and I still want her to come back. Maybe she will some day.”

“Things were just fine around here with you and her. Like when you and Mommy were together.”

Aaron sighs and prays for some inspiration. “Well, Jess and I weren’t like Mommy and I were.”

“You don’t love her?”

“Of course, I love her. But I don’t love her the same way I loved Mommy, and she wanted it to be _that_ way.”

“She wanted to have sleepovers with you.” Jack seems unsure about it, like the idea is a little too big and unrecognizable. “In bed with you.”

“Yes,” Aaron breathes awkwardly. “She wanted us to be a couple and we aren’t.”

“Because you want to have sleepovers with Spencer, right? In the same bed.”

Aaron’s face is on fire; he can feel it. He rolls his eyes upward and fidgets to buy time. That’s another problem. He desperately wants to be with Spencer but has no idea how to do that. It’s been two months since that day on the porch, and all they’ve managed is some heavy making out sessions. He doesn’t know if the problem is him, or Spencer, or the maelstrom of change he’s trying to keep from swamping his tiny boat.

Jack goes on when Aaron seems stuck. “But he’s a _man_ , Dad. Mommy was a girl. Aunt Jess is a girl…”

“Jack, I know you have friends at school who have two dads at home. You know that families aren’t always mommies and daddies.”

“But those families were always together,” Jack argues, face creasing in concentration. “They were like that before they had kids. They were always like that. You had Mommy, but now you don’t want another girl and-”

Jack stops abruptly and his cheeks pink up. The problem suddenly comes into focus for Aaron as if someone switches a light on over it. He leans in a little, features wrinkled with concern.

“Do you think I didn’t love Mommy?” he whispers as Jack quickly looks away. “Do you think I’d ever stop loving you?”

“You changed who you love,” Jack pouts. “Maybe you’d… change about me someday.”

Aaron pulls the comic book from Jack’s hands and sweeps him up into a hug that’s too tight. Jack refuses to participate for a moment, and then his arms wrap around Aaron and hold him as if he might get up and leave him.

“Buddy,” Aaron shushes wetly, rubbing his palms up and down Jack’s back. “I’ll never change how I feel about you. You’re my best bud. The way I love you will always be. Like the way you know the sun will rise in the morning. It’s always there.”

“Daddy,” Jack chokes and Aaron rocks them both in silence for a while.

“Is that what you were worried about? Is that why you’re angry with me?”

“Sorta.” Jack pulls back a bit and his cheeks are wet. Aaron thumbs the tracks away and waits. “I want Jess back.”

“Me too, but that’s not up to us, buddy.”

“Well… tell her Spencer won’t be around and she can have her old room back. He’s never here anyway.”

Aaron stiffens a little because it’s true: Spencer hasn’t been around much. When Jess moved out, he got skittish and backed off, telling Aaron, “Jack is the priority. He needs time to adjust, and it won’t be helpful if I’m around reminding him that Jessica isn’t.”.

Aaron sighs and strokes the hair out of Jack’s face. “That won’t work, bud.”

“Why?”

“Because Aunt Jess doesn’t want to be a house guest. It’s not that she doesn’t like Spencer… it’s just that she wants me to love her the way I love him. And I can’t.”

“Why not?” Jack’s face creases again in confusion. “You said you loved Mommy. Why can’t you love her?”

“Because I love Spencer,” Aaron says firmly. Jack’s mouth pinches as he frowns.

“You changed from girls to boys… why can’t you change back?”

Aaron blinks. “Would you want me to do that? To hurt Spencer? It’s not something I have that kind of control over.”

Jack thinks about that. “I don’t want you to hurt Spencer.”

Aaron breathes a sigh of relief. He doesn’t know what he’d do if Jack decided he didn’t want anything to do with Spencer.

“Have you… always liked boys?” Jacks asks hesitantly.

“No,” Aaron replies honestly. “Spencer’s the first one. The only one.”

Jack thinks hard again. “If you want to have sleepovers with him… does that mean… he’d move in here with us?”

Aaron’s heart seizes up on him for a painfully second. _God, I wish…_

“I don’t know, buddy. That would depend on a lot of things.” Jack opens his mouth, but Aaron lifts a finger and silences him. “We cannot discuss all of those things tonight. You have school in the morning. Time for you to get some rest.”

Jack reluctantly settles down against the pillow and allows Aaron to fuss about the blankets, tucking him in even though he’s too old for that now.

“Dad,” he says and waits for Aaron to look at him. “I don’t hate Spencer either.”

“I know,” Aaron mumbles. “But that’s nice to hear. Thank you.”

“But I still want Aunt Jess to come home.”

“Me too.”

“Is there a way for you, me, Aunt Jess, and Spencer to live here together?”

Aaron’s brain stutters for a handful of seconds, both enticed and alarmed by that mental picture. “I don’t know, buddy. I really don’t. We’ll have to give everyone some time to decide what they want for themselves. Then, we’ll see.”

Jack nods. “Okay. But you’ll always want me, right?”

Aaron bends close and kisses Jack’s forehead, smoothing his hair away again. “Always,” he chokes out. “All I want are the people I love around me, so that means I’ll always want you, Jack.”

“ ‘Kay, Dad,” Jack tries to hide a smile behind his hand and it doesn’t leave him even as Aaron turns out the light.

He feels like he solved a problem there but is immediately assailed by other ones. Jessica will not move back in no matter how much or how thoroughly he asks. She rents a condo close to them and claims to be happy there, despite spending at least half of each weekday at Aaron’s place. She mentions more than once that Spencer isn’t around often, and that’s another problem. Not only does Spencer back off to the point of ridiculousness, he gets a new job almost immediately, teaching criminal psychology at Georgetown. He tells Aaron he had other offers as well – Harvard, Princeton, Northwestern, Yale, Stanford – but he decided to stay local because of ‘them’. The irony is there’s less of a tangible ‘them’ now than if he’d taken an out of state position and they tried to work the long-distance thing. Even the Bureau came knocking at Spencer’s door, the Director calling him personally to convince him to come back, but finally settling for paying him to consult on various high-level cases as needed. A similar job had _not_ been offered to Aaron when he resigned.

And that leads to Aaron’s third pressing problem: his conspicuous lack of employment. The first month was fine with the palpable absence of work-related stress, the relaxed schedule, and the ability to be around for Jack. But after the novelty of that wears off, Aaron gets antsy, like he’s jones-ing for the rush again. The life-or-death stakes, the drop-everything-and-move timelines, the tight cinch of the Kevlar and the feel of his service weapon in his hand… _Wheels up in thirty…_ Maybe the job was more of a mistress than he thought – just one who didn’t love him and stood on his balls more often than not. His finances will float him through, he’s certain. There’s his savings, what’s left of his inheritance, the house and his retirement fund, but it isn’t the money that worries him. He feels useless now, unimportant, _lesser_. His failings with both Jess and Spencer compound it. For years, when he came up short, he ran away to the job because it always needed him. It made it seem like he mattered. Now…

He tries to discuss it with Spencer and that goes disastrously. He just stares at Aaron like he’s an interesting piece of space debris seen through a telescope light-years away.

“If you feel you’ve made a mistake, you can always talk to Cruz. Or Rossi. I’m sure Rossi could get you back in,” Spencer says, contemplating a mug on a table in his apartment rather than Aaron’s existential crisis happening on the sofa. His tone is flat, guarded. Aaron’s spine tingles in some sort of feral warning he doesn’t understand.

“Spencer, I have to do _something_ ,” he says too urgently, leaning into the words. “I’m fifty-five. That’s too young for retirement. Jack hasn’t even reached high school yet, for chrissakes…”

“Then _do_ something,” Spencer snaps back softly, and it suddenly seems like they aren’t talking about work anymore. “You always had so much advice for me in the past, wanting me to strike out on my own, away from my comfort zone. You should take your own advice. Or was it only acceptable if you weren’t the one risking anything?”

Aaron watches Spencer’s tight expression across the room, listens to the measured cadence of his voice, so obviously forced. His gut tightens as something whispers, _you’re losing him…_

“Spence, what’s wrong?” he asks and tries to hide how desperate the words make him feel.

“Nothing,” Spencer shakes his head and looks at him for the first time. “Practice law. You’re still licensed. You could make a real difference that way.”

Aaron huffs. “I haven’t tried a case in a court room in nearly twenty years. No firm would hire me considering that and my age-”

“Then start your own firm. Pick the cases you want to work. Find a cause that energizes you and pursue that the way you went after answers in the unit.” Spencer looks at him like this is a completely reasonable suggestion. “The skills are transferable, Aaron.”

“You can be unbearably optimistic sometimes,” he mumbles.

“And you seem prone to thinking the least about yourself,” Spencer bats back, making Aaron look to see the tight determination all over him. This is about something else…

Spencer stands from the table suddenly and begins pacing, which rachets up Aaron’s creeping sense of dread.

“You’ve always been so… capable, Aaron. It’s one of the things I most admire… no, _envy_ about you.”

Spencer continues pacing and won’t look at Aaron.

“But since you resigned, you’ve started doubting everything. The family you patched together with Jess, your relationship with Jack, your skills and abilities…” Spencer stops in mid-step and glares at his toes. “Maybe it was too much of me to ask…”

Now, Aaron is standing too because he feels like they’re thirty seconds away from coming apart again. He strides across the apartment and reaches for Spencer’s arm.

“What are you saying?”

Spencer glances at the hand on his arm and then up to Aaron’s eyes. “Maybe this wasn’t the right move for you,” he says wetly, and Aaron drags him in for a desperate kiss and mumbles, “What are you saying” again for a lack of anything more meaningful.

“I’m saying,” Spencer murmurs, leaning his forehead against Aaron’s and closing his eyes. “I love your quiet sensibility, your vulnerability that’s so hard-earned, but… this isn’t you. You’re blinded by the trees when you used to unerringly see the forest.”

Spencer brushes a kiss against the crest of Aaron’s cheekbone.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to resign. I didn’t understand how ingrained the Bureau was in your sense of identity.”

Aaron clasps both sides of Spencer’s face and stares at him. “If I hadn’t left, we wouldn’t be together.”

“But are we really together?” Spencer whispers, and it just hangs there in the air like it’s pointing a dagger at Aaron’s heart. “It’s like… you don’t know what to do with me – with us – just like everything else.”

Aaron feels his mouth drop open to argue, but nothing comes out. _Is… is he right?_

Spencer watches him for a painful moment, perhaps waiting for him to react, but when Aaron doesn’t, he shrugs and looks down at his mismatched socks.

“You say you love me, and we’ve kissed and held each other but…” His entire body shakes with a wet sigh. “You never… _touch_ me. It always feels like you’re desperate to keep me… like I’m more of a talisman to you than a man.”

Something surges in Aaron, igniting a path down his spine, vertebra by vertebra. It’s complicated – a blend of fear, anger, and an ungovernable desire – and it’s all fixated on Spencer’s slouched figure just a few inches in front of him. It doesn’t seem fair that Spencer accuses him of not touching him because Spencer hasn’t made any moves either, and God knows how many sleepless nights Aaron’s passed lying in bed thinking about Spencer in ways that make him blush.

_Does he ever lie awake thinking of me?_

“You’re not a talisman,” he chokes out. Spencer looks up.

“I’m… extremely attracted to you,” he adds for good measure.

Spencer visibly swallows and Aaron’s eyes follow the movement along his throat with a powerful ache. 

“Then… why don’t you…” 

Spencer can’t seem to finish the sentence. Aaron’s face is on fire and his collar seems to be strangling him, loose as it is. He shrugs his shirt across his shoulders nervously and tugs at the collar to tame it.

“Why don’t you?” he asks back, deflecting like a champion. “For all I know, this isn’t sexual for you-”

“It’s sexual,” Spencer interrupts too quickly, then his cheeks turn scarlet and his eyes dart around. “I’m not… I’ve never been great at this. I guess I was waiting for you to make a move.”

“And I was waiting for _you_ to make a move.” 

Aarons huffs, but he can feel a smile spreading across him too. He thinks, between the two of them, it’s amazing they’ve even made it this far. Then Spencer steps into him so they are pressed together lightly from thighs to pecs. It happens so quickly, Aaron stops breathing and then starts again with a shiver, like he’s just thrown himself into a frozen lake. He can feel Spencer’s fingers along his sides, dancing down to his hips, while his lips hum along his cheekbone.

“There,” Spencer whispers into his skin. “I made a move.”

“Yes, you did,” Aaron gasps, his hands finding their way along the seams of Spencer’s button-down. His fingers flick a button teasingly, while in his mind’s eye he’s already torn the fabric away and is consuming Spencer’s skin in hot, searching pants with his teeth, lips and hands. He wants to drive Spencer to his knees, wants to strip him and lay him out on the floor so he can cover him with his body, knot his fingers in that soft hair, bite red-purple marks into his skin while Spencer hitches beneath him, hard and wet and willing. He wants to whisper things to him: how he’s dreamed of it both hard and soft, both blinding lust and tender surrender. He wants to murmur how Spencer’s jagged edges draw him in, how he hopes that their patchwork, frayed ends will knit together someday into something wholly new. He wants to get lost in him, drown, sink down and suddenly rise up, breaking the surface as someone new, with new eyes by virtue of nearly losing it all.

Spencer’s hands reach down and grab Aaron’s ass, pulling him in tightly, and Aaron discovers that he’s monstrously hard already, digging into Spencer’s thigh. He dips his head down to Spencer’s shoulder to hide his embarrassment.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “We haven’t even done anything yet.”

Spencer grabs his chin and roughly directs him up to his mouth, and the kiss isn’t delicate. It’s devastating and deep, tongue curling hot and restless against Aaron’s as if the kiss were language. Spencer makes some kind of hurt noise, and when Aaron pulls back, Spencer’s fingers dig into his neck to bring him in again. He repeats the hurt sound but now it seems like relief to Aaron’s ears. They latch onto each other, fingers tight, lips slipping for breath before snapping together again. They’re both making sounds like this is both the disease and its cure in the same moment. When they come apart, Aaron feels woozy, and Spencer is pressed hard against his thigh as well, a hand slipped to the base of Aaron’s back so he can’t ignore the feeling.

“Touch me, Aaron… god, just touch me,” Spencer bites into Aaron’s neck, his voice just barely holding back a whine. “You used to touch me before – on the hand, the elbow, the shoulder – and I’d be on fire from that for hours…”

Aaron wrestles him close in shock. _When they worked together? When he was trying to be respectful and distant?_

“Wanna feel that everywhere,” Spencer gives into the whine and sucks a mark into Aaron’s neck. “I wanna feel you all over me…”

Aaron growls and bites a reciprocating mark into Spencer’s neck. Spencer momentarily goes limp against him while it happens and then his hands are everywhere, ripping his shirt tails loose, fumbling with his belt, stroking him roughly through his pants.

“Spencer… Spence…” Aaron gulps, feeling gloriously assaulted and a little frightened of what comes next. “Bedroom…”

“Too far.” 

Spencer’s fingers fiddle with Aaron’s shirt buttons and then give up halfway through. He parts the ends and the sound of the last four buttons popping off and skittering across the floorboards makes Aaron moan. Spencer mumbles a, “sorry” without managing to sound sorry at all, and goes to work on Aaron’s pants, pushing him backwards with his hips.

“Sofa,” he breathes into Aaron’s mouth, and Aaron is so lulled by lust that he’d lie down in a nest of snakes if Spencer asked him to.

Aaron stumbles back obediently and when his calves hit the sofa edge, he collapses like a wet paper bag. This becomes a bit of a problem because Spencer has managed to get his pants down past his hips, but not so far down that he can sit comfortably without the fabric slicing into him and his ridiculous hard on.

“Dammit…” he whimpers and lifts his hips to ease the cut of his open fly against him, then both he and Spencer are yanking at the material until the pants and his boxers are pooled around his ankles. He’s basically spread-eagle on the couch, naked, and sporting a huge tent pole. He should be mortified at the exposure, the lack of grace. But all he feels is helpless under Spencer’s gaze, waiting. He’s tight everywhere, desperate to feel Spencer pressed against his skin _at last._ And all Aaron has managed to undo is half of Spencer’s dress shirt.

Spencer pauses and rakes his eyes over Aaron without shame. Aaron blushes at being on display, and then remembers his scars and rubs a hand across his stomach instinctively, even though Spencer’s seen them. Spencer’s eyes seem huge, luminous, dark pupils swallowing up the hazel rims.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” he mumbles in awe, gaze flicking all over Aaron, trying to take everything in a once. “You’re here and you want me… Aaron Hotchner wants me…”

And somehow that throwaway sentence of amazement and doubt moves Aaron more than any sweeping declaration could.

“Of course, I want you,” he whispers back and waits until Spencer looks him in the eye. “I’ve never met anyone else like you. You’re this… remarkable, unique, brilliant, beautiful man…”

Aaron stops when Spencer’s expression turns owlish, but he doesn’t understand how Spencer can’t see it for himself. Surely someone else along the way has told him the same things…

“You’re everything I want,” he adds quietly. “I just didn’t know how to ask for it. For my whole life, I never knew how, until you.”

Spencer starts blinking too much and his face, already rosy, blushes a shade darker.

“Do you really not see how you turn heads wherever you go?” Aaron asks, because it seems impossible that he’s _that_ unaware. “Not just physically, but for your mind as well.”

“No,” Spencer mumbles.

“Unbelievable,” Aaron half-chuckles back. “All this time I’ve been jealous of everyone whose stare lingers, and you didn’t notice any of them.”

“You were… jealous?”

Aaron nods. “Every time, like an idiot. It’s a tremendous waste of time. I don’t recommend the experience.”

Spencer swoops in and presses a hand hard into the back of the sofa as he kisses Aaron. It’s softer this time, but just as deep as before, his lips slipping and catching Aaron’s over and over as Aaron throbs helplessly under him.

“You think I’m beautiful,” Spencer gasps against Aaron’s mouth, and though it isn’t framed as a question, it obviously is. 

“Has no one ever told you that before?” Aaron whispers back. Spencer shakes his head, no, against Aaron’s face but he won’t look him in the eye. Aaron sighs into his skin, relieved to be the first, but also mournful that Spencer’s never heard it, never felt it before. _Precious, unique, irreplaceable._ He’ll fix that now.

“Terribly beautiful,” Aaron closes his eyes and sucks his way along Spencer’s jaw. “Perhaps dangerously beautiful.” 

He nips at the soft skin under Spencer’s jawline. “In a way men probably shouldn’t be.” 

He licks Spencer’s adam’s apple as he stretches for more attention. “Too many contradictory features all fighting one another… Just like your mind. Everything about you is a battle of opposites. A challenge.” 

He skims his lips down that long throat. “But in precisely the right amounts that they all co-exist. They all work together against any kind of logic or aesthetics.” 

Aaron bites and then sucks the divot between Spencer’s collarbones, releasing him with a loud pop, and Spencer half fumbles into his lap, shivering. “Yes, a kind of beautiful that shouldn’t be, but is. And I’d kill to have more of it.”

“Jesus… stop talking for a second…” Spencer gulps and seems on the verge of going over the edge. Aaron pulls back and watches, interested to find out what will happen.

“You’d be more beautiful out of your clothes, I’m sure,” he says, with some newfound cockiness. Spencer gives him a weak, withering glare.

“I need a moment.”

“I can’t have ruined you simply by complimenting you,” Aaron chuckles.

“You might have. It’s been a while for me.”

“Me too,” Aaron whispers seriously and leans his forehead into Spencer’s to bolster him a little. “I’m rusty at this.”

“You’re doing just fine so far.”

Aaron brushes his nose against Spencer’s and just smiles, listening to him breathe. Spencer takes a few deliberate breaths and seems to settle into himself a little better. His pants are cutting into him at the knees and across his crotch, but he makes no effort to move out of Aaron’s lap. Aaron’s hands find their way to Spencer’s waist and soothe him along his shirt, above his belt, where he can feel the heat of him leaking through. The shirt gapes in front where Aaron managed to undo a few buttons, and he watches Spencer chest rise and fall in the dark V made by its shadows. He imagines the flushed skin underneath, the sparse leanness with its own set of scars…

“One of those nights we went out drinking,” Spencer whispers, and draws Aaron’s focus back. “As a team… we were all way too drunk, and there was a discussion about the state of my balls…”

Aaron chuckles, remembering, and presses his forehead more forcefully against Spencer’s.

“I’ve never felt desire like I did that night,” Spencer continues hesitantly. “The way you joked about it… that you had no idea about me in that moment. Your… damned smile making me feel special and too warm and too _seen…_ ”

Aaron nuzzles Spencer’s cheek. He didn’t know how much Spencer felt then, how his own behavior that night might have come across as cruel. He feels shame about it now, holding him the way he is.

“I wanted to take you somewhere,” Spencer mumbles, eyes now closed like he’s back in the memory. “Somewhere close. A dark hallway, a closet, an alley… it didn’t matter. I wanted to take you there and _take_ what I wanted from you. The urge was so strong, I was afraid I might actually do it and humiliate us both.”

“Jesus, Spence… if I only knew…” Aaron’s breath shudders out of him noticeably and he tries to cover it up by nipping at Spencer’s lips. “It wouldn’t have been humiliating, but we both would’ve felt guilty and unprofessional afterwards.”

“Yeah,” Spencer bites into Aaron’s kiss. “I dream about it all the time though. The way I would’ve grabbed your suit, the shocked sounds you would’ve made, the taste of booze on your lips, and then you’d finally grab me back, one hand holding me by the collar and the other struggling to get into my pants…”

“Take off your clothes, Spence,” Aaron begs hoarsely. Yeah, he’s begging for it and he doesn’t care. There’s nothing that could drag him away from this man now.

Spencer goes into action as if on autopilot. He leans away from Aaron and fumbles with his shirt buttons while staring at him, flushed and panting. His pupils are huge, eyes haunting, and that combined with the pointed silence, his tangled hair and furious blush moves Aaron powerfully but gently. His hand reaches up and cups Spencer’s cheek, making him blink as Aaron skims his thumb back and forth across the sharp bone.

“Dangerously beautiful,” he whispers again without thinking, and it makes Spencer groan a little as he frantically shrugs off his shirt.

His long fingers struggle with his belt, and Aaron’s hands drift to help him. He notices their hands are the same size but have two different characters. Spencer’s are thin and articulate, like fine instruments made for detailed work. Aaron’s are heavier, undoubtedly masculine, but also gentle and wary like he is. The belt is dispatched, and Spencer’s fly is open, his cock straining against the dark fabric of his underwear. Then he stumbles up and away from Aaron’s grasp as he does an awkward dance to shuffle out of his pants. Aaron takes a moment to watch him while he’s distracted and is assailed by Spencer’s sharp lines and long planes, and the way he’s biting his lip. Lanky is the word that pops into Aaron’s head. Then he takes in the pale skin, darker on his lower arms where he rolls up his shirt cuffs. The shocked blush of his nipples, the stark jut of his hip bones, and the scars that everyone forgets he has: a nasty one on the side of his neck, one in his left shoulder, the mess of surgical scars on his knee, the faded track marks on his inner arm, the strips of discoloured skin that peek out from the underside of one foot as he steps out of his clothes… Aaron wants to touch them all, to taste them, he wants to watch his heavy hands skim across every inch of that bold, vivified frame and pretend that it means he’s claimed him from everyone else.

Now naked, Spencer turns back to face Aaron with his arms bunched oddly in front of him to block the view of his cock. His face is a deep red and it’s rapidly spreading down his neck towards his chest, but he’s still breathing hard and his eyes are dark and full when he looks at Aaron from under his disheveled hair. Aaron’s breath catches, understanding the rush of conflicting feelings coursing through Spencer because it’s swamping him too. He slowly leans forward and tries to forget his own erection, and he reaches for Spencer to pull him down into his lap once more. Spencer stumbles, tenses and then relaxes as he lets out a loud sigh and grips Aarons hands too tightly, lacing his long fingers through Aaron’s thick ones. Aaron tips his head to rest against Spencer’s, and breathes out, shivering, overwhelmed at the thought of being there, naked and tangled up with Spencer Reid.

“I don’t know what to do,” Spencer whispers after a long moment of breathing and twisting their hands in and around and over one another.

“Neither do I,” Aaron whispers back, kissing him quickly.

But a lot of options immediately present themselves to Aaron, not the least of which is Spencer’s cock butted up against Aaron’s. He untangles a hand and reaches out, watching himself trace a finger around its rim, shaking when Spencer quietly moans at the almost-not-there touch and he arches his hips to grind himself a little. Aaron is mesmerized as he swirls his fingertip again to smear the drop that appears, and then he does it again as a another drop forms, and another. Spencer breathes heavily into Aaron’s hair, and his hips keep arching uselessly. Aaron can’t seem to stop now he’s started, and he keeps working the head gently until it’s flushed and leaking down his fingers. Spencer mouthing Aaron’s name into his hair, but there’s no sound and almost no breath, just the quiet creak of the sofa when Spencer shifts his weight to get more contact. Aaron wraps his hand around the shaft and strokes once, forcefully. Spencer makes a high-pitched whimper that almost stops Aaron, but then Spencer spasms a little and his dick dribbles over Aaron’s moving fingers. He watches as one drop skims away, down his thumb to the dip of his wrist and then falls onto Aaron’s scarred stomach. Only then does he notice his own cock, flush against his abdomen making a pool of its own. The stalled energy in his spine reignites and makes him whine as it sinks into his pelvis and races towards some secret spot behind his balls. He fumbles with his free hand until he finds Spencer’s, gripping the sofa back too hard, and he pries it away and redirects it towards him.

“Touch me, Spence,” he grits through his teeth, nuzzling hard against Spencer’s neck. “God, please…”

He wonders if he can suck Spencer off. He wonders if Spencer will let him fuck him, or if he can handle getting fucked himself. There’s a shiver of fear in him that he doesn’t know the answer to these things yet, his mind armchair-quarterbacking the play his body is already trying to execute. Spencer’s fingers wrap around Aaron’s cock tightly and begin stroking with authority, and suddenly Aaron knows they won’t make it to his bothersome questions. Not this time anyway. Aaron groans without warning, and he doesn’t care how it sounds because Spencer’s hand is rough and electric on him and it makes his hips jab as he trickles over those long, agile fingers. He’s groaning and biting Spencer’s neck, giving into the sporadic thrusts of his hips and the slightly sloppy hand job he’s trying to offer at the same time. Spencer is whining; it rises and falls with the movement of Aaron’s fingers, and his back tenses when he tries to get more, to fuck Aaron’s hand. It’s clumsy and unsyncopated, their movements fighting one another, but Aaron wouldn’t stop even if his life were threatened.

“Aaaarooon…” Spencer mouths against him, as his hips thrust and find nothing satisfying. Then Spencer falters and suddenly flexes until he finds Aaron’s fingers and wraps their hands and cocks together. Aaron’s eyes flash open to see their flushed heads crammed together, trapped in a cage of their frantic grip. Spencer’s long fingers stretch around them both, flexing until Aaron can make out every detail of the tendons beneath skin pulled tight enough across bone to blanch. 

“Fuck… I love you,” he gasps and then cringes at it. 

That’s not something you should say when you’re about to come; he knows it sounds temporary, disingenuous. But, honestly, he loves every second of this. Every awkward movement, every embarrassing vulnerability, every imperfect little thing about it. Because he loves this man thoroughly, and sex is just an obvious way to show it. He felt it when he pulled Spencer from a grave he dug for himself, and when he lectured Spencer about his personal involvement in Maeve’s disappearance, and when he took Marquez’s bullet. Those were the only ways he could give his love then, knowing it was nowhere near enough, just all he could afford. But everything is different now. Spencer moves on top of him, reckless and joyful, eyes pinched closed, grip too tight, and mouthing Aaron’s name over and over… Who cares if he makes a pre-orgasmic declaration; the words will still be true afterwards.

“I… I didn’t know it would feel like this,” Spencer gasps, stroking them so hard now Aaron’s starting to get sore even in the haze of lust. Aaron blinks up at him, breath stuttering as Spencer arches back, eyes still closed, and gives himself over to the feeling completely. It’s the most shamelessly erotic thing Aaron’s ever seen, and then he wonders if Spencer is talking about this moment or _them_.

“Sex?” he groans before he can stop himself. 

Spencer opens his eyes and stares at Aaron, shaking his head until the tangles fall into his face. He’s looking at Aaron like he’s going to devour him after he comes, and, shamefully, Aaron’s fine with going that way. Then Spencer’s eyes flick to the surgical scar on Aaron’s left pec, just above his heart. He swoops in without warning and sinks his teeth into the scar tissue, making Aaron yelp from the surprise of it more than anything else. Spencer sinks in and holds on until Aaron is certain he’s drawn blood. He sucks the mark, lavishing it with care after the vicious bite, cleaning the pucker made by his teeth and kissing the bruised skin until it’s raised and flush under his lips.

“I didn’t know love would feel like this,” Spencer murmurs against Aaron’s skin. “Like a fire that consumes everything. Like I’d change who I am for it. Like I’d die for it…”

Aaron’s thoughts stumble and stop awkwardly. Even his hand forgets what it’s doing, relying on the momentum Spencer is giving them instead. It’s as if Spencer just caught a glimpse of Aaron’s mind – the longing, the things he’s done to try and keep Spencer in his life, even giving up his life… He looks at Spencer’s blown-out expression, both focused and mindless at the same time, and he remembers Las Cruces and how Spencer crawled into Strickland’s lonely life and saw through _his_ eyes...

_He sees you. Somehow… he knows…_

And Aaron comes suddenly with a shout and an expression of utter surprise. Spencer’s stare shifts down to their cocks, and he watches with fascination as Aaron shoots all over himself, leaning hard back against the sofa as he comes and comes, accompanied only by the sound of his ragged breathing and Spencer’s wet slapping. He groans, eyes rolling into the back of his head, and he _knows_ a hand job shouldn’t be that satisfying. But his whole body melts on him and he feels the creeping fog of sleep trying to snatch him away as it always does after orgasm. Aaron bites the inside of his cheek to fight off the sensation, and then rewraps his hand around Spencer alone to try and get him off too.

“Did you… did you see?” Aaron mumbles semi-coherently when his mouth starts working again, but Spencer’s eyes have glazed as if he’s not fully present.

“Was it… when I bit you?” he asks, chest hitching unevenly as his hips keep pumping forward.

“Yes,” Aaron breathes, as if releasing the secret for good. “You saw into me… in that way you do… I took that shot from Marquez because it was the only thing I could give you.”

Spencer’s gaze refocuses for a moment. “It… it wasn’t selfish after all…”

“No.” Aaron feels on the verge of tears. He hasn’t always been good, but when it comes to Spencer Reid, he’s always given the best of himself. And it _finally_ feels like he’s being seen…

Spencer hitches wildly in his hand, and then he closes his eyes, curls his back and comes with his mouth open in a soundless cry. Like Aaron, Spencer seems suspended in the moment as it goes on and on, Aaron teasing the high out of him dutifully until he’s spent. Then he sags bonelessly against Aaron, mess and all, breathing hot, wet halos into his shoulder where he buries his face.

“Mmhpf,” he mumbles, and Aaron smiles drowsily.

“What’s that?”

“Mmhpf,” he reiterates.

“Okay,” Aaron grins and places a hand along the back of Spencer’s head, massaging the soft strands and keeping him close. “Rest here.”

Spencer wiggles as if he’ll get up, but then just sinks deeper against Aaron instead.

“Clean up…”

“Later,” Aaron yawns. “Rest for a moment.”

Perhaps he’s giving advice to himself because he wakes with a snort, a crick in his neck, and a very sore dick. There’s a blanket over him and his feet are no longer bound up in a tangle of his pants. He rolls his head to the side and sees something remarkable: Spencer is sitting next to him on the sofa in a bathrobe with glasses and wet hair, and he’s squinting as he works at resewing a button onto Aaron’s shirt. Aaron watches in silence for a second and then clears his throat. Spencer turns and smiles when he meets his eyes. The smile is new – somehow old and knowing, but also excited and hopeful.

“You’re back,” Spencer grins, looking professorial in his glasses and giving Aaron’s abused cock a twitch of sore interest.

“I fell asleep. Sorry,” Aaron says hoarsely, trying to convince his dick to chill out. “That happens to me after I come.”

“Good to know,” Spencer nods and goes back to his sewing.

“Why are you sewing buttons?”

“I ripped them off, remember…”

“Yeah, I know, but you don’t need to fix it. I’ll buy a new one.” Aaron leaves out the part where his heart is booming in his chest to see Spencer fixing something he damaged because of the conviction of his passion.

“Nonsense,” Spencer huffs.

“You… sew, huh?” Aaron can’t seem to wipe the grin off his face. _I’m never letting this guy go. Everything he does GETS to me. Even sewing…_

“Fifty percent of my wardrobe comes from consignment shops. Sewing is a survival skill in my world.” Spencer loops the thread around the newly-secured button, knots it and bites the thread away. Then he shakes out the shirt to observe his work. “Not bad. No one will see the difference.”

“You mean, no one will know that my friend ripped this shirt off in a race towards mutual orgasmic satisfaction?”

Fuck is he still grinning? Yes, he is.

“Exactly.” Spencer turns back and gives him a no-nonsense stare with those stupid, hot glasses of his. Aaron’s dick twitches again and he immediately regrets it when it highlights how sore he is.

“So… it was okay then…” Aaron mumbles and is grateful when his embarrassment overcomes his arousal. “I mean…”

Spencer leans in and brushes a hand across the bite he left over Aaron’s scar. His fingers trace it as he stares. Aaron wonders what he felt with Aaron’s blood in his mouth. He tries not to chase that thought too far in case it becomes an unfortunate kink. But it might be one already. Who knows? He decides right there that everything is on the table for them if they want it.

“Is it always like this?” Spencer murmurs, fingers still tracing his work. “Love, I mean. I’ve never been in love before…”

Aaron is taken aback a little because he doesn’t have a ready answer. That, and Spencer just backwardly confessed he’s in love with him.

“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s different for everyone, and with every person you try it with,” Aaron sighs. “The way I loved Haley didn’t feel like this.”

Spencer’s expression darkens slightly. “Like what?”

“Necessary. Immediate. Like something I need to exist rather than an emotional choice,” Aaron says bluntly. “Is that as scary as it sounds?”

“No,” Spencer shakes his head, looking relieved. “It’s not so scary when I know you’re in it with me. I’m not alone.”

Aaron thinks about the whole of Spencer’s life. Isolation is a key element of every story he’s told, of every relationship he’s had. Aaron thinks about the year they wasted trying to pretend this was something else, something other than the nourishment they craved.

“You’ll never be alone again, Spence,” he whispers, blinking too much. “I’ll always be here for you, even if we don’t work out.”

Spencer leans in closer, bathrobe gaping in the front and with dampness trickling down his neck from his hair. “Does that mean you’re gonna find a way to pull your life together? Or are you going to go back to Bureau?”

Aaron flinches. “You think I’d… _be_ with you, and then cave on the one promise you asked me to make for _us?_ ”

Spencer’s expression doesn’t shift. “Sex doesn’t change the fact that you’re at a crossroads in your life, Aaron. And right now, I don’t know which path you’ll take. I only know that I’m on one of them.”

“That’s the one I’m taking,” Aaron says immediately.

“Aaron, it’s not-”

“ _That’s_ the one I’m taking, Spencer,” he reiterates, leaning up into Spencer’s stare. “I know I haven’t been… the leader in any of this. I’ve let things happen to me and haven’t exercised enough will when they did. It isn’t just in this instance – it’s everything. My childhood, my marriage, my family, my career… it’s a pattern. They all took on a life of their own and I just went along with it in the end.”

He sighs and then sits up, the blanket sliding down to rest at his waist.

“I’m starting to see that there’s _more_ for me to have than what I’ve settled for over the years. You’re a part of that “more”, but there are other things too. And I know it’s going to take considerable will on my part to attain them.” He sets his mouth firmly, knowing that it makes him scowl. “But that’s what I want for myself, and if I’ve survived this long…” His hand gestures vaguely to his scars, both visible and hidden. “I’m sure I have the strength to exercise the necessary will.”

Spencer just stares at him, blinking behind his glasses and with his mouth hanging open in indecision. Then he shuts it, and a tear escapes to skim down and pool at the edge of his glasses. Aaron tenses, thoroughly surprised by the tiny moment unfolding between them. He feels Spencer’s finger trace a tickling line along the side of his face, around his jaw, and stilling as he loops it under Aaron’s chin.

“I’m certain you have the strength as well,” Spencer whispers, another tear joining the first. “You’re the most frighteningly capable man I’ve ever met. When you believe in something.”

Aaron is holding his breath and he doesn’t know why. But when Spencer pulls him in with that finger under his chin for a soft kiss, he gasps to make his lungs work again. His heart is rabbiting around in his chest like it’s trying to kill him. But the kiss is so, so soft.

“Don’t let me down,” Spencer breathes shakily into his mouth when they part, and Aaron wrestles him against his bare chest, arms wrapping around him tightly. He doesn’t say anything; his mouth won’t obey him, and his voice would probably give him away if it did. He can’t let Spencer down again – he won’t. _This_ is the choice he’s making, and the rest of his doubts can get in line behind it. He’s already lost too much by not being his genuine self. He will not give up on this love that exists simply because of who he is. It’s what he’s always wanted. He will not give up because he knows this is his last shot at it.


	11. Recovery

Spencer stands outside the house and listens to his friends inside. He can hear Rossi commanding everyone’s attention as he animatedly tells a story. There are lighter voices raised in laughter – Garcia and J.J., and probably the intern Aaron hired last month too. There are peals of excitement which can only be Jack and Henry running roughshod through the house, driven to manic levels because of all the adults egging them on. An authoritative voice calls out and the mania dims slightly – that must be Jessica, trying to rein the tiny hooligans in. There are other voices as well, but he can’t pick them out with certainty. Aaron has made so many new connections since he opened his practice ten months ago, beginning with a dog of a case that Rossi kicked his way out of curiosity and pity. Now, they’re all here – the people Spencer knows better than family and those whose names he can barely keep straight – crammed into Aaron’s house and making such a din of celebration that Spencer imagines there might be no room left for another guest. He stares at his ratty sneakers and really ponders that.

“Oh man, what did you do?”

He twitches and turns to find her smirking at him as she shuffles up the walkway to meet him. She’s perfect, as always, an amazing combination of stylish casual mixed with a healthy dose of I-don’t-give-a-fuck.

“Hey, Emily,” he mumbles as he moves to meet her on the porch steps and wraps her in a tight hug. She hugs him back and bumps the bottle of wine she’s carrying into his butt.

“Did he kick you out already?” She pulls back from him, grinning. “There’s just no way you could’ve reached peak awkwardness this soon. The party only started forty-five minutes ago.”

“I haven’t gone in yet. I’ve been out here thinking.” He shrugs and taps the toe of his sneaker against the porch floor.

“Were you thinking about how doors work?” she blinks with a look of concern that he can’t decide is sarcasm or not. He rolls his eyes at her in case it’s sarcasm.

“No. I was thinking about this party – Aaron’s first really significant victory. Arguing before the D.C. Court of Appeals to get a new trial in a wrongful conviction case, and then having the U.S. Attorney’s Office drop the option to retry… It’s the kind of profile his firm needed. I mean, he’s won other cases, but this one will cement his capabilities in legal circles. He’s made it – can’t fail now.”

He falls silent, and Emily, to her credit, doesn’t rush in with some glib comment. She reads the room, or she reads _him_ and his stupid porch lurking. She reaches out and squeezes his arm until he looks at her.

“Well, that’s the point, right? He made it happen, and he got what he wanted. It was a lot of work and he probably doubted himself along the way too.”

Spencer huffs and nods, vividly remembering the sleepless nights before opening statements on new cases, the punishing amount of labor Aaron had to do because he couldn’t afford to hire associates or law school grads to do the scut work, the look on his face when he came back from the bank after putting up his house to guarantee a loan to get him through another six months. It was exhausting just watching it happen – Spencer has no real understanding about how Aaron _lived_ through it.

“So, what’s got you out here worrying, Spence?” Emily asks gently. “This is a big win. For both of you.”

“I just… I dunno,” he sighs and gives up too easily.

“Yes, you do know,” she insists. “Now spill it. I can wait out here all day. I’m very patient when I wanna be.”

He rolls his eyes up to the porch roof and takes a deep breath, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Okay, here it is,” he begins. “When Aaron left the Bureau, I told him he had to find a way to live without it. To make something _for himself_. That was the only way we could be together. I didn’t want him building his identity around us like he did with the FBI. I didn’t want to fall into that kind of co-dependency.”

“Makes sense,” Emily nods. “And by the way, gold star for your emotional self-awareness to see that coming and get in front of it.”

“Uh… thanks,” He ducks his head a little, his hair flopping into his eyes. “So, Aaron wrestled with it – and I mean, _really_ wrestled with it, because we fought a lot before he finally decided to risk opening his own shop.”

“Yes, I’m aware…” Emily sighs and rolls her eyes. “Pair of drama queens, the both of you.”

Spencer shoots her a look, and she remains unmoved, so he just goes on. “Okay, whatever. But… he made it, like I said he would. Not that I get credit for that or anything…”

“Spencer…” Emily growls. “Quit being petulant and get to the point.”

“Not petulant,” he mumbles sullenly. “But ‘the point’, as you so doggedly insist upon, is he’s proven he can make his world however he wants. He’s changed his stripes. It’s not that things won’t be difficult now, but he’ll have assurance that he can weather it, just like he always knew what the next move was when he headed up the Unit.”

“Right.” Emily blinks. “I’m not seeing the issue. How does this epiphany lead to porch sulking?”

“It doesn’t. It’s that… he didn’t need me to do it. I wasn’t a part of it except becoming a much-needed babysitter to Jack. Which had its own benefits, I guess… he’s sorta forgiven me for breaking up his home and turning his dad gay…”

“Firstly, _Aaron_ turned Aaron gay, and you know it. And Jack doesn’t care about that. You’re still his favorite not-really-uncle even with all the humping he must hear you guys doing in the master bedroom.”

Spencer scowls at her – a very severe one he’s practiced from Aaron – but she seems immune to its effects.

“Secondly, you wanted Aaron to do this for himself, and he _has_ , so what’s with the moping that he didn’t do it for you nonsense?”

Spencer shakes his head. “It’s not that I wanted him to do it for me, it’s that I have no space in it at all. He’s grown and changed… he’s finally living for himself and he doesn’t… need me. And I’ve barely changed at all. Still with my nose stuck in a book, still with a foot half in the Bureau, still living in the same apartment-”

“Whose fault is that?” She points at him with the wine bottle, which seems vaguely threatening. “How many times has he asked you to move in?”

Spencer holds up two fingers and looks guilty.

“Ridiculous,” she chides. “Do you love him or what?”

“I wouldn’t be standing on his porch having a personal crisis if I didn’t love him, Emily.”

“Well, that’s a start,” she grumbles back and lowers the wine. “Please tell me that this isn’t another attack of your crippling self-esteem issues, because I’m so tired of convincing you that you’re good enough for him. He’s a fifty-something, anal-retentive, emotionally constipated, divorced, control freak _lawyer_ with a kid and more baggage problems than United Airlines. He’s no prize and you can do better, quite frankly.”

“He’s my prize,” Spencer rebuts softly, ducking his head.

“Jesus, okay…” Emily softens herself a little. “So, you’ve convinced yourself that he’s remade himself so well that you’re irrelevant?”

“I’m a _guest_ at this party,” he says, pointedly nodding towards the ruckus inside. “Like the intern with the name I can’t remember.”

Emily blinks at him furiously. “Spencer, the solution is obvious.”

“It is?”

“Yes.”

“Could you… uh… tell me anyway?”

She sighs. “He’s made his choices, now you have to make one of your own.”

“Make a choice,” he mumbles dubiously, clearly not getting it.

“Yes. If you’re afraid of languishing in sometimes-boyfriend land, then step up and change that. You asked him to be bold and now it’s your turn.”

He continues staring at her waiting for clarity. She puts her hands on her hips, the wine bottle sticking out comically.

“ _Commit_ , Genius,” she growls and then shrugs dramatically, eyes wide in disbelief when he keeps staring blankly.

Then the front door opens and the noise spills out around them with the light and energy they’re missing inside.

“I looked out the window and saw you two standing here like a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Aaron rumbles with a slight curl to his lips. “What are you doing? The party’s inside…”

“ _I_ just got here.” Emily throws Spencer under the bus without a second thought and shoves the bottle towards Aaron, who receives it with a smile and a look of confusion. “ _He’s_ the one playing at being a door-to-door religious zealot.”

“Hey!” Spencer calls out. “I haven’t spent one moment of my thirty-three years in religious practice of any kind!”

“Fine. You were acting like a guy whose roommate locked him out in order to get laid. Is that analogy better?”

Spencer shoots her the deadliest look he possesses, but she waves him off and steps inside, Aaron laughing at her. Then Aaron comes to Spencer’s side and wraps an arm around him, balancing the wine on his hip.

“So silly. You have a key, remember?” he kisses into Spencer’s temple and nudges him along into the energy and light.

\---- 

The party is a rousing success. At least Spencer assumes it is given the air of mild destruction the house displays once everyone is in an Uber on their way home, and all of the empty bottles and glasses he’s in constant danger of tripping over. Spencer also assumes it was a great party since he’s well and truly drunk off his ass. He sits on the sofa and blearily watches Aaron collect a handful of beer bottles to take back to the kitchen. Spencer would love to help, but he’s tried and failed to get out of the sofa three times already. Aaron glances at him over his shoulder and smiles.

“What?” Spencer hiccups and resettles his glasses to cover it up.

“Nothing,” Aaron murmurs. “It’s just a nice feeling to have what you want.”

“A pile of empties is what you want?” 

Spencer feels his face crease up. Aaron just chuckles and carries the dead soldiers into the kitchen. While he’s gone, Spencer’s drunkenness parts long enough for him to reflect back on the porch incident. Emily’s backhanded method of advice irritates and confuses him once more. She makes it sound so easy: _be bold and make a choice._ Like anything in his life has ever been easy. He should’ve moved in when Aaron asked him to; he wouldn’t be in this predicament now if he had. At the time it felt wrong: too soon and too much like Aaron needed a man-shaped life raft more than a boyfriend. The second time… well, he can’t remember why he turned it down the second time. He’s sure it must have been important and reasonable, whatever it was. It absolutely wasn’t because he didn’t know how to do it. No sir. He’s really good at figuring things out, so it wasn’t that. 

There was a case Aaron was working on around then: an abused woman convicted of killing her husband who claimed self-defence when she discovered her husband hired a hit man. Aaron was trying to get her a new trial, but he needed to find proof of the hit man. He’d searched for months and found nothing, and with no one to help and his trial date approaching, he was beginning to despair. Spencer found him one night a week before opening statements sitting at the kitchen table pouring over boxes of documents, trying to find a link somewhere. Spencer had put Jack to bed and hung around, just in case, and when Aaron grumbled that he used to have _a team_ to do what he was trying to do now, Spencer packed him off to bed too. Then he went back to the table and read every document in every box. When Aaron rose in the morning and stumbled towards the coffeemaker in droopy pajamas and glorious bedhead, Spencer blinked back at him manically and declared that he’d found the connection. They ran it down until they had evidence, just in time for the trial, and Aaron won. It was his first victory, and when Spencer walked from the gallery to the defense table after the ruling was made, Aaron turned to him, grinning, and asked him to move in.

Spencer blinks, staring at a spot on the carpet as he remembers. The sensations of that moment play back vividly, and he feels the gut twist of fear that follows Aaron’s question. It’s just the flush of the win, he thinks, it’s temporary, so he says no. He also thinks it might be because Aaron wants him around to help with other cases. ‘Cause he’s handy that way. But what ends up happening is Spencer helps out anyway, and Aaron doesn’t ask him to move in again.

More blinking happens as Spencer thinks, _did I lose my chance?_ His gut sinks when he realizes Emily is right: Aaron can’t make all the moves – he’s got to try it at least once.

“Dammit,” he grumbles.

“What’s that?” Aaron walks back from the kitchen. He seems admirably sober.

“Nothing.”

Aaron shuffles to the sofa and drops down next to him, ignoring the legion of bottles surrounding them. His arm skims along the sofa ridge until his hand can massage the back of Spencer’s neck, and Spencer groans a little at the feeling. Aaron’s other hand falls gently along Spencer’s thigh and just _sits_ there, not adventuring anywhere interesting. Spencer groans at that as well. He notices Aaron’s sweater and thinks it’s the same one he wore the day they accidentally met at the Smithsonian, and then he gets too warm all over.

“What’s on your mind?” Aaron murmurs. “You’ve been a little odd all evening.”

“A little odd is where I live,” he smiles. “And I’m also unfortunately quite drunk.”

Aaron chuckles and leans in for a soft kiss. “Oh, I know that part.”

“Are you drunk?” Spencer asks, because honestly, he can’t tell. Aaron nods and then trails his lips over Spencer’s chin and down along his throat. Spencer shivers and then stutters out, “O-oh… well, you d-don’t seem drunk… always so capable…”

“I think you should put my capabilities to the test. Upstairs. In private.” 

Aaron’s mouth moves to the side of Spencer’s neck and sucks a showy mark there that melts his bones into something liquid and ignitable. Spencer-below-the-belt wants to take him up on his offer, his blood flow already heading in the right direction to make that happen. But Spencer-above-the-belt can’t get into the moment. He wiggles a little under Aaron’s attentions and then gently pushes him back by the shoulder. Aaron smiles for a moment, thinking he’s won, and then sees Spencer’s expression and the smile falls.

“What is it?”

“I… umm… I gotta say something. Gotta make a choice here.”

Aaron’s expression closes off immediately so there’s no recognizable emotion there at all. “Okay… shoot.”

Spencer takes a deep breath and holds it for a moment. Then he dives right in.

“Today was great. That Court of Appeals thing is a huge win for you, and you really deserve it. I mean, it’s like when you used to walk into an interrogation room and pull someone apart like you were following a checklist. The confidence is there, and everyone can see it now – it’s powerful.”

“Thank you.”

“And I’m super proud of you. You did everything you said you’d do. I don’t know if I’ve told you that.”

“You haven’t.”

“Well, I am. Sorry I forgot to say it until now, and that I am doing it awkwardly because I’m all sloppy and can’t get off this couch.”

Aaron’s mouth twitches upward for a moment and then settles. He still looks worried. Spencer knits his fingers nervously together.

“Sorry… I can already tell I’m not doing this well… you look upset…”

Aaron’s hands cover Spencer’s and gently pull them apart to sit in his lap. They stroke him lightly, as if soothing an injured animal.

“Maybe just say what you have to and forget about the right way to do it,” he murmurs.

“ ‘Kay, well… You’re on your way now. You did what you promised and pulled your life together, turned it into something you wanted for yourself.”

“I did it for _us_ , Spence,” he squeezes Spencer’s hands.

“Yeah, but… I’m not really a part of it. Not that I should be…” He shakes his head to get the words to line up straight. 

“In regard to that, I have something I’ve been wanting to mention to you,” Aaron pauses and stares at him like a suspect. “But I’m not sure I should if you’re planning to break up with me…”

Spencer makes a terrible choking sound and swallows several times as he blinks in shock. “Break up with you? No… why would I do that?”

“Isn’t that what you’re trying to say?”

Spencer feels stricken and then the words just burst out of him like he’s having a verbal seizure.

“I’m trying to ask if we can live together because I don’t know how you feel about getting married again and living together is a way we can avoid that without hurting each other’s feelings. But I know you asked me to do this before and I said no, so now I don’t know how to ask, when I’d be moving into _your_ home, and it seems like the homeowner ought to do the asking in this scenario, and it’s not like we can all fit in my place, but you might not ask again, and _I_ did that, so Emily told me it was my turn to make a big move, and I’ve never had to ask before and what I really want to ask is that you never leave me behind no matter how many changes you make or how great you become because I love you so much I wish I could pack you up and carry you with me everywhere so I’d have all of your amazing qualities leak into me and I’d seem amazing and great too and everyone would see and say, ‘oh, it’s because they are a _them_ instead of him being a he’ and…”

He runs out of breath and makes an embarrassing cough-hiccup as he tries to settle his lungs down. Aaron pats his chest a little to help, but he’s doing it on autopilot. His expression is completely shocked, with his mouth hanging open slightly.

“Ummm…” Spencer hums, looking worriedly at Aaron, then to his hands and back. “That was bad, huh? I should’ve waited until I sobered up…”

“You’d like to… move in together?” Aaron asks cautiously.

“I’d like to marry you, because what I feel has that kind of permanency. But I guess living together is probably more logical. I mean, you might not like me so much if you saw me all the time, and I think it’s very obvious that I don’t know what I’m doing here…”

“If you ask me, I’ll say yes.”

Spencer sits straighter and blinks a lot. “Yes to what?”

“ _Whatever_ you ask, Spencer. Whenever you decide to ask it.”

Spencer swallows that down and wonders how a moment can hold such joy and fear simultaneously. Is he really just that bad at this?

“You still want me?”

“Yes,” Aaron whispers urgently, leaning close and grasping Spencer’s hands. “Why would you even ask that?”

“Because,” he chokes and dips his head a little. “Maybe you just needed me to get you to your tipping point. The rest you did yourself – you didn’t need me.”

“That’s the dumbest-” Aaron doesn’t finish the sentence as he takes Spencer’s mouth. Spencer can taste the wine on his lips and feel the light scratch of his five o’clock shadow. One of his hands struggles free and rises to cup Aaron closer. He loves the feel of him – everything about him – and can’t remember with too much clarity what it felt like to kiss someone else.

Aaron’s hand tangles through Spencer’s hair and holds him securely until he’s done, so he can’t back away and say something even more stupid. Then he breaks away from the kiss and continues as if it hadn’t just interrupted them.

“How do you come up with these ridiculous ideas? And how do you convince yourself they’re right?” he growls. “I need you every day. It’s my first thought when I get up and my last one at night.”

“Oh…” Spencer breathes, still unsteady from the kiss.

Aaron leans their foreheads together. “Listen. I know I’ve been preoccupied with building the practice. For months now. There hasn’t been much time for anything else and I know… I know I can get tunnel vision about work. I know how much that focus can cost in the long run. So… that thing I mentioned before? That I wanted to discuss with you? Well, I think I’d better do it now before you come up with another weird theory about me…”

“ ‘Kay, what is it?”

“I want to offer you a job.”

Spencer can feel his face twitch in confusion. “I already have a job. Two of them, in fact. And I’m not a lawyer.”

“No, you aren’t. But you’re a damned fine investigator, and now the firm has an elevated profile, I’ll get more clients. And more clients means more puzzles to solve, and that means I need an investigator. I can’t do it on my own – I have to focus. Delegate. And it makes little sense to go looking for one when I already know the best in the field.”

“But…” The argument dies in his throat, and excitement springs up in its place.

“Your work on the Caan appeal was what set this all in motion. Without you and that link you found, I would’ve lost that case and the firm might have been over before it really got started. And I know you enjoy it, Spence, otherwise you wouldn’t have offered to help over and over.”

Aaron’s other hand rises to cup Spencer’s face in warmth, and he snuggles closer until he’s almost in Spencer’s lap.

“We can work together – build this _together_ – without the anxiety and the burnout of the Bureau. We’ll work the cases we want, we’ll pursue justice we believe in, and maybe we’ll make our corner of the world a little better in the process. What do you think?” Aaron dips in for another kiss. “Every Perry Mason needs a Paul Drake…”

“Who’s Paul Drake?” Spencer murmurs, too warm and happy all over to care about the answer.

“Really? You’ve never heard of _Perry Mason_?”

Spencer shakes his head, no, then licks his lips and dives back into Aaron’s mouth.

“Is that a ‘yes’, then?” Aaron asks when they come up for air again.

“Yes, okay. Yes.” Spencer balks for a moment. “Wait… can you afford me?”

“I can afford you,” Aaron chuckles over Spencer’s lips. “If you want to keep teaching part-time, that’s fine, but you’ll have to quit your consultancy with the Bureau. Conflict of interest. I have a feeling we’re gonna be looking into a lot of their cases when the word gets out.”

Spencer nods and catches Aaron’s lips again. He doesn’t really care about losing his last connection to the Bureau. His consult cases have always been with other branches of the organization – never the BAU – and he’s decided that he’s lost his taste for it. It turns out it wasn’t the mysteries that kept him there so long, it was the people. Now he has a chance to get part of that back _and_ be a part of the changes Aaron’s making. No more lurking on the edge of a party; he’s going to be at the center of it for once.

The kiss gets intense and wet and deep, and Spencer gets the urgent need to strip Aaron out of his pretty little sweater and press him down into his king size bed upstairs. To that end, he wrestles Aaron awkwardly until he half falls against Spencer and they both tumble back into the couch, Spencer knocking his head on the arm rest.

“Steady there,” Aaron growls darkly, pulling away so his eyes can focus. Spencer’s dick pings when he sees his grin, flashing his dimples and making him seem like a delighted teenager. And Spencer’s messed up his hair, which he’s privately decided is the hottest version of Aaron there is: free of his buttoned-down, worried, dark seriousness.

“So, may I move in with you?” he blurts. He blames the dimples and the smile and the warm solidness of Aaron pressing into him through that damned sweater.

“The job offer wasn’t enough to suggest I don’t want you anywhere else?” Aaron smirks, and then rubs his hips against Spencer’s thigh meaningfully. He slips into Spencer’s mouth again and moans softly, exactly the way he does when Spencer is moving in him. And despite the intoxication and awkwardness, Spencer is hard in an instant.

“I’ve been waiting for you to decide you’re ready,” Aaron whispers between pulls, his tongue flicking along Spencer’s lower lip. “I’m so glad you’re ready, Spence. I’ve wanted you here for so long…”

The last part comes out as a whine and Spencer loses it, feeling too full with want until he’s in danger of bursting.

“Aaron, take me upstairs now, or we’ll end up doing it here.” He’s gripping Aaron too closely, acting contrary to his words. He just doesn’t want to let go… “I’ll need help. Stupid drunk legs…”

Aaron laughs against him and then rears back and pulls Spencer up so quickly, his stomach swirls unpleasantly and he questions whether they’d end up in the bedroom or the bathroom.

“Careful,” he gags.

“I’ve got you.”

And he does. Aaron’s arms wrap him up and hold him steady as they both stagger and stumble their way up the stairs. They collapse along the way a few times, knocking heavily against a wall for a desperate kiss or a heated laugh or some clumsy grappling and stroking.

“Good thing Jessica took Jack back to her place tonight,” Spencer gasps as Aaron somehow unzips him and abuses him through the hole while still getting them to the top of the stairs.

“Mmmm, good… yes,” Aaron growls and Spencer knows he’s not really listening anymore. An unleashed Aaron is half feral, mindless with the pleasure he’s either giving or receiving, and Spencer is always in awe of it. He’s addicted to the fact that Aaron only truly lets go with him. “Wanted you all night… since I saw you looking lost on the porch…”

“…Really?” Spencer stutters as they tumble into the doorframe to the bedroom, knocking the wind from him and unsettling his glasses. Aaron pulls them off and recklessly throws them aside as Spencer complains. But they land on a deep chair next to the wardrobe, safely out of harm’s way, almost like he planned it. _Capable, no matter what._

“Want you all the time. It’s like background noise in my head.” Aaron pushes them both until Spencer’s calves hit the mattress. He lulls Spencer with a zealous campaign of swirling kisses along his throat until Spencer sags into him, breathing roughly and openly. “Used to dream about stuff like this… fucking in the dark, in _our_ bed… getting Jack ready for school together… just being happy in a life as one unit… fuck, Spence… just strip already. Want you to suck me off and then get so deep inside me that you make me scream for it.”

“Jesus Christ…,” Spencer gasps, and then does exactly as instructed.

Later, as they heave together in the mess they’ve made of the sheets, with Aaron so tight around Spencer they’re both sweating from the body contact, Spencer leans over him, damp hair swinging into his face, and says, “I get it now… why people kill for this…”

And Aaron arches so dramatically it seems impossible with Spencer bearing into him. Aaron’s eyes are wide, riveted to Spencer as he releases again, shocked and grateful and sinking under it as Spencer keeps going. As Aaron relaxes, Spencer leans closer, his own high almost on top of him now as he watches Aaron breathing hard to recover and feels them still sliding together, still one.

“I’ll… never give up… this…”

He curls his back and comes hard, eyes clenched shut as he collapses against Aaron’s chest and rides out the waves that slam into him over and over. He’s dimly aware that Aaron is whispering to him, and his hands are smoothing across his back as his hips twitch and spasm, then eventually subside.

“Oh, Spence…” Aaron’s voice is hushed and damp, but his arms wrap Spencer up and hold him close until he drifts away.

When he comes back to himself, he realizes he’s pulled an ‘Aaron’ and fallen asleep. He rolls against the heated skin at his side and blindly kisses whatever he can reach.

“Passed out. Sorry.”

He hears a dark chuckle and then feels broad hands pushing him away. “I’m flattered. Now go clean up real quick. Then you can pass out again, okay?”

“M’kay,” he mumbles and staggers out of bed towards fresh water, but he has no memory of a bathroom or how he makes it back to bed and into the arms that hold him close while he sleeps.

\---- 

When the sun rises, Aaron slips out of bed to tend to his hangover and to make coffee. Aaron learned early on that Spencer won’t rise without coffee, no matter what state he’s in. Swallowing back a couple of ibuprofen with his own cup of joe, he returns upstairs and finds himself content to watch from the doorway with two mugs cooling in his hands. Spencer is spreadeagle across the bed, barely covered by a sheet, his hair in a tangle only a shower can fix, and softly snoring with his face half lost in a pillow. He’s all arms and legs, stark bones and slim definitions, and he’s littered with purpling bruises along his neck, dappling his shoulders, and some finger-shaped ones along his ribs. Aaron’s tired, but the sight quietly fires him up as always.

_An impossible scenario._

He remembers thinking that whenever he thought of them like this. His brilliant, emotionally embargoed subordinate. The man he mentored, taught to shoot, and twenty years too young for him. The man he thought about too often and too luridly, instead of his wife. The person he could never have because of his job, his status, and his entire fucking life history up to that point.

Spencer snuffles and rolls, one arm flopping over the edge of the mattress to hang down by their discarded clothes.

_An impossible scenario. And yet… here we are._

Aaron’s heart constricts and then suddenly expands too fast, making a strange, soft noise tumble out of him as he tries to get himself in line. He shifts and spills coffee on his hand, making him grumble. Then Spencer yawns and stretches dramatically, before relaxing as if he’s boneless, and opens his eyes.

“Hey,” he says in a gravelly, hungover way.

“Hey.” Aaron beams at him. Then he offers him salvation. “Coffee?”

“Yeeeeeeeesssssssssss,” Spencer sighs and makes grabby fingers at one of Aaron’s mugs. He shuffles over, chuckling, and carefully hands him the elixir.

“You okay? You want some Advil or something?”

“Let’s see how this goes first,” Spencer mumbles into the rim of the mug as Aaron gently sits next to him on the bed, his leg pressed against Spencer’s hip.

They sit together like that in comfortable silence until their coffees are gone. Aaron pulls Spencer’s mug from his hand, sets both of them on the nightstand, and then returns to watching him. Things happen to Spencer’s expression as the quiet tension stretches out over them. There’s curiosity, then amusement, exhaustion, a flicker of worry and what Aaron assumes is self-doubt, then finally a sort of smoothing out of his surfaces that he settles into. He leans into a pillow at his back, half sitting up to face the day, and half hoping to drift back into something softer.

“So,” he says eventually, never taking his eyes off Aaron.

“So,” Aaron says back quietly. He waits and he smiles.

“One day I’m gonna ask you to marry me,” Spencer murmurs. It’s simple and even, as if already decided. “You know, after we’ve lived together for a while and you’ve acclimatized to all of my strange habits.”

Aaron laughs gently. As if he doesn’t know all of the strange habits already. “Okay. When you ask, I’m going to say yes.”

“You shouldn’t decide now.”

“ _You’ve_ already decided you’re going to do it. Why can’t I?”

They continue staring at each other, Aaron with a bemused expression, and Spencer with a slightly confused one.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Aaron blurts, suddenly overwhelmed by the idea of loving your life so completely, and having it return the sentiment. It’s amazing he lived without that knowledge for so long.

“I’m so happy I finally figured out what love feels like,” Spencer whispers seriously.

Aaron nods, over and over, because he can’t respond, and his vision is getting a little blurry. He blinks to rein it back. Then he feels Spencer’s fingers find his on the mattress and lazily curl around them. When Aaron glances back to Spencer’s face and sees the reassuring smile there, he squares his shoulders and feels his confidence flood back into his chest.

“When can you have your stuff moved over here?” he asks.

“End of this week,” Spencer answers almost immediately. No stuttering or blushing. “I can have my go bag packed today…”

“Good,” Aaron nods again, this time emphatically, and he grins. Their fingers continue curling together, moving slowly and lightly as they outline one another.

Eventually, Spencer grins back, and it’s one of those toothy, crazy smiles that’s always made Aaron’s stomach flip a tiny bit.

“I can’t _wait_ to get started,” he whispers almost too quietly to hear.

“Get started with what?” Aaron asks.

“The firm, _us_ , a real family, being here, what comes next… just _everything._ ”

Aaron can’t hold it in any longer and leans forward until he can kiss him. It’s soft and sincere, and he tries to funnel all of the unspeakable joy he’s experiencing into it, knowing he’ll never find the right words. Spencer makes the kiss last, his fingers still cradling Aaron’s, and the gesture feels like he understands – that he’s giving back in the same way he’s received it. And Aaron suddenly gets _got_ in the silence he’s always wanted to share.

When they part, Aaron smiles like he never has before, and he kisses the corners of Spencer’s mouth, his cheeks, his temples, his forehead; gratitude he’s been saving for a lifetime.

“Well, let’s begin by cleaning up the boozy aftermath of last night,” he murmurs, leaning his forehead against Spencer’s.

“I’m at your disposal,” Spencer nods against him, nips his lips, and then wiggles out of the bedsheets to get started.


End file.
